Making a Home in Kabul…err, Herat

Y’all just go read Afghanistanica’s recent post. Made me giggle.

I’ll be posting my recent trip to a local beauty parlor soon but on the H of A blog. I’ve been trying to repress the experience, but I can’t, so I will let you all enjoy my pain.

I probably won’t post here again until September or so, since most of my posts now will be Afg-related. After that, I’m guessing my HiK will be mostly for family & friends since I’ll be posting about my life. Or not. We’ll see.

Hey folks,

If you want the password to the post below, send me an email either to my personal account (if you have it) or at homeinkabul at gmail dot c o m

Or if you knew me when I was little and remember name of my first cat, that’s the password.

Go read this!

Recently I was at an Afghan wedding, actually my sixth that year, but who’s counting? Certainly not me, the single girl who is ceaselessly subjected to everyone else’s happiness while bitterly contemplating the paradox that is Afghan culture…

After all these years of living in Afghanistan off and on, I made the classic mistake. I gave my phone number out to a stranger. Let me explain, I wanted pretty herati glass. The kind I wanted wasn’t ready and the elderly shop-owner said he’d call me when they got the new stuff.  I already had his number but I gave him my number anyway with my name written in Dari. He asked me to write the number in Dari. I told him that I had to go. I should’ve been honest and told him that I’m shaky with my numbers (though I really did know them). There were other men in the store, who said they’d translate it for me. I’m guessing he must have given my number to translate it.

This morning, I got a number of ‘missed’ calls* from a number. I called back, thinking it was my driver.

Alas.

It was some young man. He spoke to me informally. I hate that. I hate it when strangers don’t use the formal tense. I am not your friend! I thought it still might be a work call. I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you. Who is this?” He continue with the informal.

I hung up.

In summary, I am still a dimwit.

*Missed calls are when you receive just one or two rings. It’s a good way to tell someone that you are downstairs and not get charged.

Y’all just go ahead and think about the following points:

1. Afghanistan is a place where airing soap operas is an expression of human rights. The Government has banned Indian soaps, which are incredibly popular in Afghanistan. President Karzai has bowed down to religious pressures and agreed with the super fundamentalist Ministry of Information and Culture. It’s against the Constitution and the media law to ban these soap operas. I’d also like President Karzai to perhaps focus on ooooh, I don’t know, anti-corruption? Violence against NGOs?
2. There is either a demonstration outside, or the little kids next door have their hands on a mega- phone. I think it’s the latter, which makes me want to throw a rock at them.
3. 100 more death sentences issued. But we don’t know who they are and what they did. What has President Karzai said about it? Nothing, he’s still thinking about the soap operas. Please see #1.
4. BBC asks: Are Afghanistan’s aid millions well spent? Please ask the highly-paid international experts that are getting the afghan aid because the everyday people sure as hell aren’t. And please, before I hear the whining about it’s dangerous and they deserve the pay. I agree…for certain people who are actually doing their jobs and contributing. The significant number of expats who are spending their time here partying and coming to work drunk?  No, I’d prefer that they go to rehab in their home country. Remind me to write a post explaining the international expat scene…We’ve got the actual NGOs; the private contractors parading as NGOs; the private contractors; the UN agencies; the missionaries; the expat Afghans who fit in the above and I’m sure I’m missing some.
5. Warlordism is winning over democracy. Yeah. It is. And it’s depressing.
6. Oh, and on a tangent. I picked an invitation and got sick the next day. I got so sick that each time I think of the invitation, I feel sick to my stomach. Weird. Y’all might just get e-vites.

In addition to the deep thoughts I’m having about last names, middle names and changing the spelling of my first name, I’ve been thinking about other things. Oh, yeah, I am officially changing the spelling of my first name. I figure that if I’m going to go through the hassle of changing my name on all official documents, I might as well go ahead and do it all at once. I did have a pang when I thought about saying goodbye to the spelling of my first name. It’s wrong, no one ever says it ‘right’, I think the 2nd way looks prettier and I’ve been using this ‘new’ name spelling for such a long time that some friends may not even realize that the official spelling is different. Still, it felt like I was saying goodbye to 4th grade HiK.

Back to the ‘other things’, I’ve been thinking about

1) Paying off my loans (mostly student). It’s about $200K. Hey, was that a gasp from you, way back there? I know, it’s gasp worthy. should’ve thought about this earlier, but now that I’m getting married, I’m thinking about how to have a stable life. My past 5 years of school, intermittent employment and traveling, while fun, haven’t really helped achieve this goal. It’s been a nagging thought for a while and the source of full-blown panic sometimes but now I need to start thinking seriously about my career, making money and saving. My volunteering masked as employment has got to stop. I’ve really enjoyed this website: Girls just want to have funds and Get Rich Slowly

2) The environment. So, I don’t have much control over the wedding in Afghanistan. The groom’s family usually handles it and while they are all incredibly nice and open to anything I want (say Mashallah), I doubt they would appreciate my suggestion for a hippy wedding in someone’s backyard. Mr. N and I agreed to a small nikkah in Kabul and little party in the U.S. That was outright vetoed by both sets of parents. He’s the oldest and I’m the oldest and that means, My big fat Afghan wedding and my pretty big fat party in the U.S. You’re all invited.

My baby brother laughed when I suggested a party in the backyard for our ‘U.S.’ party. His response was, “Who do you think you have for parents?” Anyway, so I’m trying to curb waste on the little things: using environmentally friendly invitations for the U.S. party and using a website to track rsvps rather than those cards..They were REALLY hard to find and I’m still debating on whether to use them, as I will have about a week in June to find a wedding dress style that I like, assemble & send out the invites. Baby brother has agreed to help with the invites, bless his baby soul. Put maybe I should just set up a snazzy website? That may also get nixed by my parents. Baby brother is planting flowers so we’re going to use those and supplement the rest with locally grown flowers. Oh and no diamonds, though I did get gold jewelry and very pretty wedding bands.

3) Apartment Decorating & Living. I cannot tell you how excited I am to actually have a space of our own. I am envisioning an Afghan-American Martha Stewart home, but you know, smaller and without all those flowers. Okay, probably with lots of flowers. I’m envisioning lots of painting, re-upholstering and sewing. Do I know how to sew? I do not. Not knowing how to sew is not part of my day-dreaming. Carry on. Apartment decorating tips are also welcome. You know I’ve been surfing the net: Curbly

4) How to remain involved in Afghanistan in the U.S. While it was an easy decision to get married to Mr. N, the thought that I would have to leave Afg for at least a few years was hard. It’s still hard, though I think it will be good for me to be out of Afghanistan for at least a little while. It’ll be good to gain some perspective and also try to find my niche in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Once we get back to Afg, Inshallah, I don’t think I can work at the government or do the non-profit thing (though my current project is so uber-great, despite the challenges. It’s just not a long-term job) and I don’t see the benefit of the work that most contractors do (sorry, I just don’t).

So, where do I fit in? What can I do to prepare myself for my eventual return,Inshallah, to Afghanistan? One is to become fully fluent in Dari (reading & writing, not just speaking) and the second is to pick up some experience in…Well, that’s the question. I’m toying with the idea of setting up my own law firm if the security and business environment allows it. I’d have the independence to say what I want (as opposed to working in the gov’t or a non-profit), teach on the side and also help train the next batch of lawyers in Afghanistan. Doesn’t that sound nice? I’ll need more legal skills for that and the confidence to do it. That’ll come from working with a very experienced lawyer. I don’t know how to go about finding this ‘ideal’ situation. The legal employment field is so caught up in status and rank, that I’ll feel like I’m starting high school again. Prepare yourself for snarky emails about my temp jobs (or lack thereof).

So, I guess I’ll keep the blog - but we’ll be discussing whatever I feel like, so basically, it won’t change anything.

I don’t know if I can set up a poll on wordpress and frankly, I’m not sure if I want to take the time to figure it out.

I have 4 options:

• Hyphenate my last name. For example (pretend that ‘Jennifer’ is my first name: Jennifer Homeinkabul - Namzad
• Keep my last name and don’t change anything: Jennifer Homeinkabul
• Change it to his last name and use my last name as my  middle name: Jennifer HomeinKabul Namzad. (The issue here is that this would create rather unfortunate initials in ‘real life’.)
• Change it to his last name and that’s it: Jennifer Namzad

Please let me know what y’all think. Though I was not a fan of hyphenation in the past, and Namzad is not really either - I think it would be the best option.

I don’t have any insightful words or deep thoughts to mark the passing of Martin Luther King Jr. All I can say is that growing up in the deep South, his story is one I heard often, and one that influenced me deeply. What better message to give to a refugee child than the story of a man who had the courage to speak out against society’s so-called wisdom? My hopes to ‘change the world’ weren’t that silly when I knew that other people unapologetically believed in improving the lives of others.

If we really care about this nation’s future, we must assign ourselves the personal responsibility to be a voice for justice for children and the poor in these scary and turbulent times. We still face the threats Dr. King spoke of: war, terrorism and greed in uncertain economic times.

Perhaps the best tribute to Dr. King is to keep striving. To fight cynicism and despair with hope and sincerity. Dr. King was not afraid to speak out against the government’s wrongdoing, despite immense pressure. He chose to allow his morals be his guide, rather than popular culture. The longer I live in Afghanistan, the more this makes sense to me. I’ve heard the anthropological arguments about cultural relativism, but the older I get, the more I want to be with the people who have a moral code and try their best to live by it. Peace & blessings be with you and your family, Dr. King.

I found these two websites that I’ve enjoyed exploring:

The Root [via Afrobella]

Religion Dispatches [via Koonj]

The most powerful factors in the world are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will.
- J. Arthur Thomson

I started a post that basically had alot of bitching and complaining. Basically reveling in my angst, but I irritated myself so I didn’t publish it.

I am finally feeling better though I had to cancel my outing for the day because I am so behind on my work. And I don’t want to eat anything other than chocolate chip cookies & mashed potatoes. Not together, of course. Well…never mind, I’m grossing myself out.

Alas.

There was an out and out brawl on my balcony a few minutes ago. It was between three birds and I think one had a razor blade taped to her wing.

No, just kidding, you know an Afghan bird would have a kalashnikov or something. Or whatever those big guns are called - someone look up the spelling and let me know.

I have been all alone for the past week. It was nice since I didn’t want anyone around me while I slept and puked. The daily conversations with the nice lady who cleans the house was taxing enough. Mostly because she likes to sit beside me while I work to talk complain endlessly and cry. It’s sad. And then she wanted a loan about $500. Which umm, no. I’d give you the list of reasons but I don’t want to. Let’s just leave it at ‘no’ and I feel both sad and guilty about it.

My ever-lasting problem here is that very few people really want to be my friend, they just want something from me. I was warned about this before I came. And it’s all understandable, but lonely for me.

I want to go shopping with my Afghan-American girlfriends. It’s spring, I’m lonely and don’t want to make new friends, I just want to gallivant about the city without worrying about kidnapping.

I also don’t want to move to the U.S. I want to move back to Kabul. Despite the pollution and danger - that’s where I have the most fun.

Okay, I still ended up complaining. I’m sorry. I just deleted 2 paragraphs were I come off as the biggest brat in the world. Well, not the biggest, but pretty obnoxious nonetheless.

I really do have serious posts about the jihad museum and Afghan perceptions of the ‘other/khareji’ but I’m tired.