We only had two meetings booked as it is a semi holyday (tomorrow it is Nawroz and the birthday of the prophet), first a lunch meeting with a NGO, then at five, another meeting. Between that I was trying to get a meeting with someone I met in Mazar, but as he did not pick up, I had a gap in the schedule the whole afternoon. My colleague had caught a cold and felt he could not attend the first meeting and asked if it was ok that I went on my own, which it of course was. As the meeting was with a NGO they had far less security restrictions and that felt really refreshing. And as the persons I was meeting was one Afghan man and a Tadjik woman it felt very natural and relaxed. After the meeting in their office they invited me for lunch in the Serena Hotel. That was also very nice. After the shootings there in January, internationals seem to avoid the place, but it was nice to see it and it is a very nice hotel, a world apart from the life outside the walls. Since the shootings they have rebuilt the entrance and now it is basically a fortress!
Kabul Serena Hotel
After lunch the lunch they offered to take me back to the guest house, but I already had other plans in mind than going back to sit there the rest of the day so I called my own driver. First I asked him to take me to the Safi Landmark as I knew there it would be a cash machine and I needed to withdraw some more money. He let me off outside the entrance and said he would park around the corner. I thought the Safi Landmark was just a hotel that had a cash machine in the lobby, but it turned out to also be a quite modern shopping mall! Very surprising! I had to walk quite a bit into the mall and then I started questioning whether this was a smart thing; walking all alone in a shopping mall to get money, quite a lot of money, that I would have to carry with me all alone again. But it felt safe and I was very aware of whom and what was moving around me. Unfortunately this made me not look into the shops very much. Had I known this was a shopping mall, I would have planned for staying on a while. When I came out I did not see the car and the driver, which made me a little nervous; I mean there are people being robbed after having withdrawn money in Sweden too! But then I saw him just a bit further down the street and walked there. Well walked and walked, more zig zaging between cars and jumping over puddles and deep ditches. Anyhow this started get me going and once in the car again I asked the driver if we could go for a trip somewhere nice and still safe.
He seemed to think this was a good idea and suggested the TV-hill. That is a hill in the middle of the city from where you have a fantastic view over the whole city. That was fantastic!
On the way up to TV hill.
The old city wall climbing up the hills over the Kabul river.
View from the tv-hill.
As the hill is basically in the centre of ths city you have views in all direcions.
From there we went to the Old Town, through very narrow “streets” lined with market stalls and people preparing for the holiday parties tomorrow.
I realised I was probably violating a million security regulations and recommendations, I was out on my own, in an un-armoured car, with a driver I do not know very well (but trusted!) driving in areas I don’t know, getting caught in crowds and traffic jams and also carrying quite a lot of money on me (of which the driver was aware!). But I felt safe!! I felt much safer going through the crowded market with people everywhere than driving past the heavily fortified ISAF-HQ.
On the streets of Old Kabul
The people that we met and that we had some interaction with, seemed very nice and did not mind a lonely foreign woman coming around. In the old town we left the car and entered into some narrow alley. It was rather dirty and smelly; you could see the open sewers running across the path. My guide showed me a tomb of two people, he could not really explain who they were, but I understood it as it being a man and a woman that were in love but somehow were killed and now people went there to pray and my driver, who is a trained designer told me that he and his teacher had made the decorations in the ceiling. There was also another tomb next to this one but that one was only for women so I had to go in alone.
It was all a rather moving experience. At the same time as we were there an old woman was also there. When I first saw her, she was sitting in the stair and shivering, I thought she was sick or “mad” but when she managed to get up I saw she was so badly bent she made a 90 degree angle. This is a very poor part of Kabul, very far from the Serena hotel! A young boy was handing out dried chick peas and sultanas. At first he did not give any to me, but then someone said something to him and very shy and blushing he gave me some. I said “tashakhor” and he blushed even more. My driver explained those are alms that they give out because they pray for something special. Again I was in one of those culturally and socially sensitive moments. An extremely poor person gives something edible to me, who am just so much more affluent than him, and in this case as an alms. There was no way I could refuse to accept that and also it would be very rude to not eat it and throw it away. At the same time I was thinking about the open sewers just outside. I ate one pea and one sultana as the boy saw and then on the way out of the tomb and on the way into the other I asked the driver to hold them for me under the pretence I needed both hand to remove my shoes before entering the tomb. Good eh!?
After that we went up a couple of other hills and saw a few cemeteries and I learned that those are popular pick nick sites for the Nawroz celebrations, especially the one close to the lake; Shohada-ye Salehin. This could have been an absolutely stunningly beautiful place with the high mountains in the background over the lake, were it not for the amount of dirt and rubbish in the water. We saw the old citadel and the grave of the old king and the Gazni stadium and the buzkashi ground. When I was told about the buzkashi ground I told my driver I like horses and used to ride a lot. Then he said “come, let’s have a look at the horses” and turned the car into a winding dirt track behind some buildings, I think it was stables. On the ground behind the stables there were some people practising buzkashi!!
I got completely excited! I never thought I would get the chance to see that and here I was on the training ground of the Kabul team!!
It was so fascinating! I could have stayed there a long time and watch.
Had it not been for the fact that we had another meeting and that I would not have time to go back and change clothes before the meeting I most probably would have accepted the offer made by some of the managers sitting on the side watching the game.
When they heard I could ride a horse they offered me to borrow one and one of the men was already on his way into the stable to get one for me before I could say that I will have to come back and try that. Just imagine how cool wouldn’t that be! To ride a buzkashi horse in Kabul!! I am not sure I would be able to manage one and I would most definitely not join the game, but it would have been cool just to have a try to ride one!! This was a great after noon!! I think the driver also liked it as he offered me to go somewhere tomorrow too, before he takes us to the airport. We’ll see what we can manage. It could get a bit messy tomorrow as it is a big holiday.
This evening we had dinner in a restaurant on town, which was also nice. The food at the guest house is very nice, but it is just nice to get out some too and see some other sides of the town.
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