Browsing articles from "December, 2010"

Happy New Year!

Dec 31, 2010   //   by peretz   //   photos, Uncategorized  //  4 Comments

Thanks to Anselm for com­ing up with it, we have a new tagline:

Adven­tures in Khy­ber­space!

Get it? We’re focused on bring­ing tech­nol­o­gy to the Khy­ber Pass. Just a few days ago, we took a dri­ve to it’s West­ern Edge, the Torkham Gate.

This street scene brought to you by JD, a friend of the TAJ:

Nan Factory

Dec 30, 2010   //   by LouBu   //   videos  //  6 Comments

While walk­ing down the streets of Kab­ul last week I stared a lit­tle too inquis­i­tive­ly into a nan store/factory pump­ing out the long, flat bread that is eat­en with every meal in Afghanistan. The man stretch­ing the dough noticed my pry­ing and invit­ed us in to see the whole process up close, encour­ag­ing us to take pho­tographs and film the intri­cate, six man team work­ing togeth­er to form the vat of dough into iden­ti­cal dia­monds of flat bread. The bread is baked in a clay tan­doori oven, stuck ver­ti­cal­ly up against the inside wall. As the fin­ished bread is pulled off the oven walls with long iron hooks, a man in the win­dow sells the hot, steam­ing fin­ished prod­uct to cus­tomers, who fre­quent­ly go away with half a dozen or more loaves. In a tra­di­tion­al Afghan meal instead of a plate each per­son is giv­en a full loaf of bread. He or she tears off chunks and uses them in place of uten­sil­s to scoop up chunks of lamb or beans. They sent us away with a steam­ing, flat, piece of nan. Delicious.

Links

Dec 29, 2010   //   by peretz   //   links  //  No Comments

This has float­ed across my link­space over the past week:

  • Pajh­wok News — a local Afghan run news ser­vice, recent­ly signed con­tract to pro­vide video and pho­tos to CNN.

  • How to write about Afghanistan — amus­ing read­ing. (Thanks Ben Atlas!)  I guess we have to study it hard­er, since we’re fail­ing so far.

  • Jim Gant: the Green Beret who could win the war in Afghanistan — inspired reading.

  • Kuchi, Afghan Nomads — Megan has been called a Kuchi, in par­tic­u­lar by one enthu­si­as­tic boy.  Sup­pos­ed­ly since the Kuchi wan­der great dis­tances in remote places, they are pro­fi­cient smug­glers.  A Kuchi tribe has cur­rent­ly tak­en up win­ter res­i­dence in Jalal­abad (a tem­per­ate low­er val­ley).  There is a Kuchi out­post right across the street.  Dave says I should­n’t peer in with binoc­u­lars.  “That’s the kind of thing that will get you shot.”

  • The Kuchi peo­ple have Kuchi Dogs which come in Sub-vari­ants like: moun­tain-type, lion-type, tiger-type.   Last line in Wikipedia arti­cle cau­tions: “They are still a very prim­i­tive breed; per­haps not suit­ed to gen­tle soci­ety.”  Then again, you can get them in the Bay Area. 

  • Pash­tun Dances: Attan — spin­ning sim­i­lar to whirling Dervish­es, and Khat­tak.  I’m sure some­one some­where has ana­lyzed the sim­i­lar­i­ties of var­i­ous spin­ning dances, such as Lezkin­ka of the Cau­cus, the Dervish­es, or stick dances of the Tharu, etc.

  • I find this pecu­liar —> The­o­ry of Pash­tun Descent from Israel:
    Israel is plan­ning to fund this rare genet­ic study to deter­mine whether there is a link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pash­tuns. (Wikipedia)

    “Of all the groups, there is more con­vinc­ing evi­dence about the Pash­tuns than any­body else, but the Pash­tuns are the ones who would reject Israel most fero­cious­ly. That is the sweet irony.”
    —Shal­va Weil, anthro­pol­o­gist and senior researcher at the Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty of Jerusalem

  • The Extreme Tourist — Aus­tralian Trav­el Show about Afghanistan.  One of our con­tacts here in Jalal­abad has worked as the local fix­er for the show.

  • NYT Video: Ashu­ra in Afghanistan — Kab­ul’s annu­al Ashu­ra fes­ti­val, in which Shi­ite Mus­lims whip them­selves to the point of blood, reflects new free­doms and old tra­di­tions in today’s Afghanistan.

  • Graph­ic Pho­tos of the same event —“Muharram is the first month of the Islam­ic cal­en­dar. It is one of the four sacred months of the year in which fight­ing is pro­hib­it­ed… [I guess the alter­na­tive is to focus agres­sion inward.] The tenth day of Muhar­ram is called Yaumu‑l ‘Ashurah, which is known by Shia Mus­lims as ‘the day of grief’. On this day the death of Imam Hues­sein, grand­son of Prophet Moham­mad, is mourned. He was killed in the 7th cen­tu­ry bat­tle of Kerbala.”

  • A friend in Kab­ul told us about the best place to get the down­low of social hap­pen­ings about town. He had for­got­ten the name of the site, so he called a friend. Can you guess what it is? Couch­Surf­ing Group Afghanistan. I’ve been impressed by CS in the past, say by how many couch­es are on offer in Iran, but I had not until that point con­sid­ered surf­ing in Afghanistan 😉 Have a look for yourself.

    • Glossary

    Dec 28, 2010   //   by peretz   //   terms  //  9 Comments

    Terms picked up along the way:

  • ISAF - Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force is what the US-led NATO coali­tion forces are called in Afghanistan.
  • Com­mVoid — of as in, “Sor­ry, I did­n’t hang up, we got Com­mVoid!”  Because many IEDs are trig­gered by cell­phone, ISAF and UN con­voys fre­quent­ly trav­el with cell­phone jam­mers cre­at­ing a communi­ca­tion void in their vicin­i­ty.  As I have been informed by peo­ple who have expe­ri­ence with such things, the most dan­ger­ous place to dri­ve is at the bound­ary of such a jam­mer bub­ble.  If the cell­phone is being used to trig­ger an IED in the road, once the con­voy pass­es, it goes boom.
  • Mon­ey is Expired — as in, “sor­ry, this mon­ey (old style 20$ bill) is expired.  We can only exchange it for 700 rather than 900 Afs (short for Afgha­nis, the local currency).”
  • Eye in the Sky — A high-tech sur­veil­lance bal­loon that flies in the skys of Kab­ul.  It is fre­quent­ly down for repairs (as fre­quent­ly as it is shot at.)  Locals believe it’s peer­ing eye can see them inside their homes.   Who knows, maybe it can?
  • The Wire — as in “Out­side the Wire, Inside the Loop” the tagline of an infor­ma­tive blog about Afghanistan by Tim Lynch, a fre­quent guest at the Taj. The Wire refers to the barbed wire that sur­rounds bases where sol­diers oper­ate and clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion dom­i­nates. It serves as much to pro­tect those with­in as it does to pre­vent them from accu­rate­ly see­ing the sit­u­a­tion out­side.  Iron­i­cal­ly, it’s own kind of veil and many inside the wire feel restrict­ed and cooped up.
  • Pornol­o­gy — as in what you are not sup­posed to be brows­ing on the internet.
  • Music Par­ty — as in, if we have a first born boy, we’ll have a music par­ty and many peo­ple will come.  If it’s a girl, we’ll have just a food par­ty and not invite as many peo­ple.  Maybe you are the kind of peo­ple that will have a music par­ty even if it’s a girl?

    • The Eye in the Sky is the large white object in this photo:

    IMG_4268.jpg

    It’s dusty here, and late. I’m going to use a Neti Pot to clear out my sinus­es and try to catch some sleep.

    Afghan National Dresses

    Dec 27, 2010   //   by peretz   //   photos  //  6 Comments

    I found this scanned cal­en­dar of Ari­ana Afghan Air­lines from 1973 and am repost­ing here.

    [flickr-gallery mode=“photoset” photoset=“72157625559950781”]

    Click­ing on an image will bring up a light­box. Then you have to click on the sides of the light­box to pan around.

    And you should take a look at this pho­to series from For­eign Pol­i­cy Mag­a­zine, which will total­ly blow your per­cep­tion of Afghanistan’s recent past:

    Biology Class in Kabul University - 1960s

    - Biol­o­gy Class in Kab­ul Uni­ver­si­ty, cir­ca 1960s

    Border Hopping

    Dec 27, 2010   //   by LouBu   //   Uncategorized  //  1 Comment

    Jalal­abad sits at the crux between cen­tral and south Asias, tucked into the moun­tains near the Kyber pass- the famous gate­way to the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent. The peo­ple here are Pash­tuns, and their tribes strad­dle the polit­i­cal bound­ary between Pak­istan and Afghanistan. I’ve heard ref­er­ence sev­er­al times to “Pashtunistan,” a coun­try that exists in only a cul­tur­al con­text, encom­pass­ing all the Pash­tun peo­ple from both sides of the board­er. The red line on the map was drawn when British India pushed north into Afghan ter­ri­to­ry and the Afghan King ced­ed that land. How­ev­er, the bor­der has always been flu­id- many Pash­tuns grew up par­tial­ly in Pak­istan and trav­el between Jalal­abad and Peshawar reg­u­lar­ly. Thou­sands of Afghan Pash­tuns moved east­ward dur­ing the Sovi­et inva­sion or dur­ing the Mujahideen fought civ­il war that fol­lowed or when the Tal­iban gov­ern­ment seized pow­er.  They still have rel­a­tives there, who speak the same lan­guage and fol­low the same Pash­tun­wali code of ethics and hon­or. I’ve been told that Pash­tun peo­ple don’t even need a pass­port to cross the board­er over the Kyber pass. Haz­zaras and Tajiks will be has­sled and need prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion. Pash­to speak­ers who look the part get waved in. Polit­i­cal­ly we are in Afghanistan but cul­tur­al­ly we’re slip­ping into Pakistan.

    Pashtunistan

    The maximum borders of Pashtunistan (shadowed in blue) and the Durand Line border in red.

    - from Wikipedia Pash­tunistan

    What’s NORMAL anyway?

    Dec 26, 2010   //   by peretz   //   long  //  2 Comments

    Words are pow­er­ful.  You read them and they paint a picture.

    The prob­lem is, some things are hard to describe, our con­texts are too dif­fer­ent. Humans have an amaz­ing capac­i­ty to adapt, and we have already adapted.

    You’ve seen some pic­tures and some videos.  We’ll keep those coming.

    Once a week, I’ll try to write a longer post.  Lou and I have been here a week now and it’s time to share more fully.

    It’s chal­leng­ing to back­track this process of adap­ta­tion, but nec­es­sary, so that future writ­ings will make sense from this shared context.

    Afghanistan is a land of walled off com­pounds with no incen­tive to out­ward­ly adver­tise what lays with­in.  Things hap­pen behind large walls, and often sev­er­al tiers of walls.  Going some­where, is often a process of exit­ing one com­pound, quick­ly and qui­et­ly mov­ing to the next.

    To begin with — the air­port.  We land, rough land­ing, the plane almost bounces on the tar­mac.  We’re dri­ven to the gate to col­lect our bags.  We’ve got con­tra­band — alco­hol, good as gold in an Islam­ic coun­try.  We try to take advan­tage of the com­mo­tion, stack our bags dense­ly behind a group bring­ing in a large load of box­es, whisk them away quick­ly, before the cus­toms guards learn to care.  We’re clear.  We’re here.  Where?

    I don’t know.  Afghanistan for sure, but what is this place?

    The sec­ond tier of secu­ri­ty seem to spend more time figh­ing with each oth­er than pay­ing atten­tion to us, punch­ing each oth­er, scream­ing at each other.

    Cars don’t pull up to the ter­mi­nal.  You walk.  Todd knows the way, Lou and I fol­low. Through one bar­ri­cade of stone walls and barbed wire, then anoth­er.  We see a park­ing lot of cars.This isn’t for us.  They are armored.  A lot of the NGOs hire Land Cruis­ers with B6 grade armor to bring their employ­ees home.

    We walk through anoth­er gate.  We walk past Sovi­et con­tain­ers turned into office.  We walk through what looks like an aban­doned bus ter­mi­nal.  It’s dark and empty.

    At last, we are in the civil­ian lot.  A few cab dri­vers are fight­ing with each oth­er.  It seems like the issue is who got there first and who will leave first with a pas­sen­ger.  A younger one shoves an old­er cab dri­ver away.

    Todd has called a car for us.  “Zuhak, we’re here and wait­ing for you.”  Zuhak is one of the mid­dle tier car ser­vice com­pa­nies and Todd likes them for their rec­og­niz­abil­i­ty — red Toy­ota Corol­las, all 9 dri­vers are cousins — and also their abil­i­ty to blend into the traf­fic — most cars are Toy­ota Corol­las.  “We’re less of a tar­get that way.”

    We maneu­ver out of the lot weav­ing through bar­ri­cades set up to slow traf­fic down and make the air­port defen­si­ble when nec­es­sary.  We stop for a car­a­van trav­el­ing quick­ly, armored camoflauges Lan­drovers, sirens blaring.

    Traf­fic is tense.  Every inch is eat­en up imme­di­ate­ly by any vehi­cle in a posi­tion to do so.  It does­n’t mat­ter what direc­tion it’s head­ing in, even if it’s oppo­site the direc­tion of traf­fic.  Dri­ving is a per­pet­u­al game of Chick­en. Larg­er vehi­cles have less to lose.  Small­er vehi­cles can con­sume small­er gaps. I am con­vinced we’re going to get hit a few times (even­tu­al­ly we did).  There are sew­er ruts on either side of the road.  We get so close, I am con­vinced we’re going to fall in.  (We see oth­ers who have.) It’s off road­ing in the mid­dle of the city.  We pass a check­point and Todd says, “We’re home.”

    Masked gun­men approach our car and peer in inquis­i­tive­ly.  “Hel­lo my friend. Are there any rooms avail­able?” What rooms.  We’re in a dark alley.  Sand­bags are pilled high in the form of a bunker.  It is a bunker!   The ratio of guns to humans is upset only by the fact that we don’t have any.

    They return Tod­d’s friend­ly­ness with a smile, Salaam Alekum.  Come in.

    The entrance is designed like canal locks. The door behind locks you into a small steel cham­ber.  If you’re favor­ably assessed, the next door is opened.  A few iter­a­tions of this and we are in a lob­by.  A nice lob­by. Wel­come Sir, says a host­ess from the Phillipines.

    ***

    My weak­ness is writ­ing long blog posts, and often leav­ing them unfin­ished.  I’ll cure myself this go around, and wind down with some anecdotes.

    Among the ex-pats there is a stunt­ed social scene in Kab­ul.  In an amus­ing regard, it’s like high school, every NGO has their own cur­few, it’s own set of rules where they can and can­not go, and what chap­er­on­s (read “armed guards”) need to accom­pa­ny you.  Sleep overs are com­pli­cat­ed. You have to clear it in advance with your guest-house man­ag­er.  (Every NGO has their own guest-house and some are under such strict lock down that they have to bribe peo­ple to come vis­it.)  Sol­diers, for the most part, live inside an even more seclud­ed bubble.

    Nev­er­the­less, some estab­lish­ments thrive in this envi­ron­ment.  One reminds me of Casablan­ca, cash only, crisp bills, no cred­it, locals aren’t allowed in (where alco­hol is served), the own­er has the final word.  Con­trac­tors and sub-con­trac­tors, NGO employ­ees, jour­nal­ists and thrill seek­ers spend their evenings over­pay­ing for booze inhal­ing the thick air full of smoke from cig­a­rettes and wood fires.

    When we are frisked with­in the chan­nel locks, “No guns no knives?”  Do many guests have guns and knives when they come in?  The guard replies, “The smart ones.”  There are cub­bies for this pur­pose, to check your weapons before you enter the bar.

    It’s now the hol­i­day sea­son in the West.  Many local ex-pats are tak­ing their vacata­tion, fly­ing back home, “back to the real world tomor­row.”  But isn’t this the real world also, I say to guy who has been work­ing for DAI.

    “The real world for me is when my daugh­ter tells me to turn the light out when I leave the room.  Over here, we’re always run­ning on gen­er­a­tors and they’ll use the same amount of fuel regard­less, plus we’re told not to alter the pow­er load too much by flip­ping light switch­es on and off.”  And that’s just the beginning.

    Get­ting into a car, a local tells our friend Megan, “Don’t buck­le up.  It’s dan­ger­ous.”  Anoth­er adds, “well, it’s com­pli­cat­ed.  If we roll the car, or get into a high speed acci­dent, it would have been bet­ter to be buck­led.  If we hit an IED, it’s bet­ter to be unbuck­led and have the door open. That way, it may blow you clear.”  A spe­cial forces guy inter­ject­s that his tech­nique is to buck­le the bot­tom but put the chest strap behind the back, and men­tal­ly review the way to climb out of that posi­tion.  “It’s com­pli­cat­ed either way.  You got to make your own decisions.”

    Turkey Slaughter

    Dec 25, 2010   //   by peretz   //   videos  //  6 Comments

    We went shop­ping for Christ­mas din­ner in the bazar. Todd (Huff­man) had in mind to get a turkey and our dri­ver helped us find one. The bird was dis­as­sem­bled in front of our eyes.

    Merry Christmas from Jalalabad

    Dec 24, 2010   //   by LouBu   //   photos  //  1 Comment

    This is Dave. He’s our trib­al elder here at the Taj Guest­house — Malik Dave. He runs the Syn­er­gy Strike Force, which Peretz and I are now part of. He’s a US tank gun­ner turned MD PhD turned hip­pie-human­i­tar­i­an aid-tech guru. He’s respon­si­ble for the flex­i­ble, organ­ic nature of the projects we work on and gets batch­es of mon­ey to make them hap­pen. Last night at our bar (the only bar in East­ern Afghanistan) he decid­ed to take a hol­i­day pho­to to share will all our friends back home. Says Dave: Hap­py Hol­i­days from Jalal­abad, where the San­ta Surge took them by surprise!

    Panorama of Jalabad Valley

    Dec 23, 2010   //   by LouBu   //   photos  //  No Comments

    IMG_4582

    Panora­ma of the val­ley where we are liv­ing, tak­en from the top of a Bud­dhist bur­ial mound. You can see the Kab­ul riv­er in the dis­tance with the caves Osama Bin Laden lived in when he first came to Afghanistan behind it.

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