Today we even took a walk in the streets and in a market and I finally got to see the blue mosque. Still from the outside the gates, but closer than the 500 metres as last time. It is truly beautiful!
We actually got behind the gates too and saw the famous white pigeons. A grey pigeon that lands on the mosque is said to turn white within seven (?) days because of the purity and the holiness of the mosque. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that they keep loads of white pigeons just behind the mosque... While posting this picture I noticed that I had also captured the man laying in the middle of the picture. We saw him when we were there and wondered if he was actually dead. It is not so unusual that people sleep in the streat or in parks, but this man was lying in a somewhat strange position and in the blazing sun, which is unusual. Maybe he lay down for a rest while there was still shadow, but by the time the sun turned the man had died.... well, I don't know.
Walking in the market was nice. Of cause you get a lot of attention and my colleagues noted that the men stared at me. I did my best not to care or to even notice and I am quite good at it.
An old man was selling knives in the street, I believe we were good customers.
There are more burqa clad women here and I suppose the people in general are less used to westerners in the streets. On the other hand it is nice to meet the women without burqa, they look you in the eyes and I can meet their gaze and often they smile back and say salaam. That is nice!
The place were we are staying is also very different. It is a hotel, but it is a little more like the guest house we stayed at last time and very far from the five star Serena. But I like it! It feels much more genuine, and the internet connections are far better than at Serena. Who would have guessed that?! The hotel restaurant is obviously the only (or one of the very few) hangout for internationals in the city. So at dinner we had almost the whole young, international NGO and UN-crowd of Mazar at the table. Here you also can drink alcohol, which you can not at Serena. It is funny how much you can long for a cold beer. Especially in the heat and dust here, it is ca 40 degrees and very dry and dusty. We were all really looking forward to having a cold beer in the evening, but then it turned out that they were out of beer as the transport from Kabul was delayed. Speak of disappointment!! The wine was also out so we had to drink gin tonic…
The flight here was also very different. Although it is very dry and the predominant colour of the land is sand, it is still much greener than in March. From the air you could really see where there is some water. In the valleys where there is a small stream of water it is green and all of a sudden some of the villages that I spotted the last time make sense. But still, many of the villages are incredibly isolated. We heard today that some villages are cut off from the rest of the world for five to six months during winter! I don’t understand how people survive here.
Before we left Kabul I met with the same driver that drove us the last time, which was a very nice surprise. It was good to see him again, we chatted for a while and then he invited me for dinner with his family on Monday evening. That is of cause very sweet and I am very flattered and I was actually thinking that it would be nice to have some more time to talk to his family. At the same time it feels a bit weird. I don’t know if it was just me he invited or if I should ask the others. And I don’t know if it is wise, safe and what I should bring or what to wear etc etc, but of cause I can not reject such an invitation!
Tomorrow we are going on a field visit together with the ministry for energy and water to some villages at the Amur, where they have some flood prevention projects. That will be very exciting. I will actually get to see the Oxus that I have read so much about.
After that we are invited to the camp for midsummer celebration, so some midsummer I will get after all…
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