For Anne Lise

When I moved to Oslo in 2009 on diplomatic assignment, the Embassy's housing office placed me in an apartment on the regal Gyldenløves gate (golden lion street).  My upstairs neighbor was a petite older woman named Anne Lise, and she was nice to me from the start, often stopping to chat in the stairwell or waving to me in the neighborhood.  As time passed, I got to know Anne Lise better as well as the rest of my neighbors.  We did dugnad (periodic cleaning and maintenance of the apartment grounds) together a few times a year.  We had an annual party around the lighting of the Christmas tree behind our building.  We all knew each other and got along.

Enjoying the sense of community I felt with my neighbors, I decided one day to host a dinner party for everyone in the building.  I printed out invitations and slipped one in each mailbox.  There were less than ten families in the building, so a dinner would be a significant undertaking but not impossible.  On the invitations I had distributed, I had requested an RSVP.  Receiving no responses, however, I woke up on the day of the party and cooked as if everyone was coming.  I knew that wouldn't be the case, of course, but I assumed at least some people would show up.

With all the cooking and tidying up finished, and the hour of the party drawing near, I nervously waited for my guests to arrive.  Right on time, there was a knock at the door.  It was Anne Lise, standing with a bowl of berries.  As we enjoyed some appetizers and waited for the other guests to arrive, it soon became apparent that no one else was coming.  Talk about embarrassment!  I had one guest and enough food for a small army, and I felt so foolish.

Anne Lise, realizing what had happened, was gracious as always.  I told her we could reschedule if she preferred, but she insisted that we continue with dinner.  I phoned a few friends who didn't live in our building, and once they arrived, the four of us had a lovely evening.  I learned a lesson that night, as an outsider American, that Norwegians sometimes retreat when someone comes on too strongly as I had done.  I also developed a great respect and fondness for Anne Lise.  It was that night she went from being the nice lady upstairs to being my friend.

Over the course of my three years in Oslo, we met for dinner or tea often.  We shared many stories of both of our travels around the world, and Anne Lise was always keen to hear my impressions of Norway.  I remember one of her crazy stories in which a lion attacked her fur coat in Kenya, thinking it was more of an animal than just the hide.

Anne Lise also included me in her syttende mai celebrations (Norway's National Day on May 17) which were always elegant and lively affairs.

I remember the day she told me she had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  She knew the outlook was grim, and she was sad to be uprooted from her home on Gyldenløves gate in favor of a building with an elevator.  At the same time, she remained positive, presenting herself with the grace and dignity I had always known.  Not knowing what to say that day, I gave her a hug.  It would be one of our last.

I moved on to new adventures in different countries, but we kept in touch over the years.  Then, after a six-year struggle, Anne Lise passed away.

Rest in peace, friend.

Uzbekistan: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 1)

In our first few days at Post, a colleague shared an observation: "Eitan could pass as Uzbek," he told us.

Then he turned to me.

"You stick out like a sore thumb," he remarked. "Your look is too exotic."

I didn't feel overly "exotic," but I would hear echos of this analysis from a few different people over the coming days.  One person went on to add that while I didn't look Uzbek, I could definitely pass as Russian.  I'm not sure that amounts to any great advantage, though.  People will just be all the more shocked that I don't speak Russian worth a darn.

In any case, my exotic look isn't the only thing blowing my cover as a foreigner.  Of course, speaking English is a give-away, as is my tendency to look around too much.  And it seems I'm also the only adult in town who wears t-shirts in public.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I was walking down the street one day, I heard something rustling in the ditch.  I stopped to have a look, and the source of the noise was a little grey mouse.  He was soon joined by a friend, and the two of them poked around in the litter with no concern for me.

It was nice to come across these guys, reminiscent of my brother's pet mouse, Bullet, rather than the monster sewer rats you often find in urban areas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a full day of sightseeing, Eitan and I caught the Metro toward home.  In the train car we boarded there were enough people to fill nearly every seat, but no one was standing.

Eitan and I were the first people without room to sit, so we stood near the door, holding onto the metal handrail.

A few minutes into our journey, a young man motioned for us to take his seat.  Between his body and his backpack, he had been occupying two spaces.

The young man, who was maybe 14 or 15 years old, stood up, and Eitan and I took his place.  I assumed this teenager must be getting off soon, but he rode the train four more stops and departed at the same station as we did.

"Do you think that kid offered up his seat because we look old?" I asked Eitan.

"No," he answered, "we don't look that old."

Perhaps Eitan was right.  Maybe the kid gave up his seat on account of my exotic look.

Uzbekistan: First Plov

Two weeks after arriving to Tashkent, I still hadn’t eaten plov, Uzbekistan’s national dish.  Plov – also known as palov, osh, and pilaf – is a dish of rice and meat with vegetables, seasonings, and sometimes extras like raisins, chickpeas, or fruit.  Here in Uzbekistan, it is usually made with lamb or mutton, and there are subtle regional differences.  In some areas, it is made with orange carrots; in others, yellow.  Some people use white rice; others use dark rice.  Many people include onions and garlic, but not everyone.  In some regions, it’s fried longer.  Some plovs are more oily than others.  Salt, pepper, paprika, coriander, cumin, and bay leaf are common plov seasonings, but, of course, there are variations on this front too.  It’s a dish where everyone seems to have a special recipe, but to an untrained eye like mine, the end results are all pretty similar.

In any case, I was overdue to give it a try, and our Uzbek friends Arpa and Tasma were keen to remedy this situation.  They invited Eitan and me for some Sunday afternoon plov, and we happily accepted.

The ladies picked us up in the early afternoon, and in a quarter of an hour, we pulled into the parking lot of a humble restaurant on the edge of town.

Passing by a meat case stocked with horse and other red meats, we were received by a waiter at the entrance to the dining room and seated near a window.  Rays of light slanted down on our table, illuminating the dust in the air.

In addition to our foursome, there was another table with a handful of people near us and a group of probably 20 people at the far end of the room.  This larger group seemed to be several generations of a family, from the elders to the toddlers.

Arpa and Tasma handled the ordering, focusing on the classics, and a minute after the order was placed, the waiter returned with a pot of tea and a round of naan.

It is tradition in Uzbekistan to return the first three cups of tea back to the pot, a duty which Arpa undertook.

“Is there any meaning behind this?” I asked as she was pouring the tea into the cup and back into the teapot.

“Well,” she replied, “it mixes the tea.”

The answer was more pragmatic than I had expected, but it did make sense.

Tasma tore the bread into several pieces, and we snacked on that until the plov arrived a few minutes later.

Eitan got a special vegetarian(-ish) plov, which was basically a normal plov with the chunks of lamb removed.  The rest of us had a normal, meaty plov, topped with horse sausage and quail eggs.  A small plate of chopped tomatoes and onions was served on the side.

Plov is served!

I started my plov experience by eating a few of the horse sausages off the top.  These sausages are made by stuffing the horse’s rib meat into its intestines, and they were pretty rich.

“Take care,” Tasma warned.  “Kazi [horse meat] is rich in iron and can cause high blood pressure.”

This news was most welcome as it gave me a lifetime excuse if I ever wanted to get out of eating horse.  It was just like in Pakistan when I had been warned not to eat too much brain masala as it was very high in cholesterol.  After that, I had only to mention that I was watching my cholesterol and whoever was trying to coax me to eat brain would relent without prejudice.  Now, in the case of kazi, I would simply have to say I was watching my blood pressure, and I would similarly be off the hook.  Brilliant!

After the horse sausage, I put a few scoops of plov on my plate along with a quail egg.

It certainly smelled good, and I was looking forward to my first bite.  I plunged my spoon into the edge of my mound of plov, and as I pulled it out, I recoiled.  Nestled in the oily rice, there was a black hair – wavy, but not curly, and a few inches long.

“Be this hair of man or beast?” I wondered.

I was repulsed to be sure, but since I was out with other people, I was forced to act like an adult.  I discreetly plucked out the hair and concealed it under my plate.

Then I slowly scooped the rice again, wary of finding another surprise.

Luckily no other hairs surfaced, and I was able to clean my plate.

“How do you like the plov?” Arpa asked me as I sipped my tea.

“It’s nice,” I answered.

When I was a child, my parents often prepared rice with meat.  Sometimes they used chicken, turkey, or pork, but most frequently, they used beef.  Add in some onions, maybe some bell pepper and garlic, and it was basically plov we were eating.  Thus, the Uzbek plov, while not exactly exotic, was satisfying and inspired a bit of nostalgia.  Indeed, it was nice.

Uzbekistan: Battle of the Bands

With an Embassy concert taking place later in the day, there was a certain buzz around campus.  Most people were looking forward to attending, but not my colleague, Apollo.

“That place is gonna be mobbed up with Uzbeks,” he told me, “and they are only going because they think there will be free alcohol.  You can count me out!”

This was my first such event at the Embassy, so despite Apollo’s warning, I went to the concert anyway.  After all, I was under no obligation to stay if I didn’t like it.

The concert, which was held at the Old Embassy compound in the Chilanzar district, was part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a network of concerts held annually around the world to promote tolerance.  Daniel Pearl was a journalist killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.

When I arrived to the venue, a number of Uzbeks were waiting in line to pass the security checkpoint.  I bypassed the queue and entered through the employees-only line.

The chairs facing the stage were about a third filled when I entered, and Embassy staff were making final arrangements for the show which would start in a few minutes.  RC Cola was sponsoring the event, and consistent with its tendency toward over-the-top American imagery (at least here in Uzbekistan), a woman in a red, white, and blue cheerleading outfit was behind a table distributing sodas.  Eitan was coming to the concert separately, so while I waited for him, I chatted with some colleagues and sipped my RC.  Around this time, someone randomly handed me a bag of popcorn.

The show kicked off with some speeches, and then the music commenced.  Up front were chart-topping artists Shahzoda, DJ Piligrim, and the big enchilada Yalla featuring Farrukh Zakirov.  Yalla has been a hit band for years, and its most famous track, "Uchkuduk," was the song of the decade in 1980s USSR.  Yalla performed a few songs, including "Uchkuduk," and the crowd went wild.  Then the program shifted to the amateur talent who had competed for slots in the show by sending in demo tapes.

The amateur acts were diverse.  There was a pint-sized girl belting out the Frozen anthem, “Let It Go,” a garage band from Tashkent’s Westminster University, a young woman billed as Uzbekistan’s first banjo player, and finally “Uzbek Bob Dylan.”

While some were better than others, the performers generally put on good shows.  Still, I was restless.  I didn’t feel like dancing at the foot of the stage, and I didn’t feel like sitting in a folding chair.  I ended up going with a third option: standing in the back and talking.

I was chatting with a colleague, and when he left in search of a bathroom, an Uzbek guy walked up.

“Do you work at the Embassy?” he asked me.

I confirmed his suspicion, which led to his ask.  The banjo lady was performing at the time, and this guy was cringing.

“This is pretty bad,” he told me, “but some whiskey would help.”

I felt bad for the lady actually.  Her corn-pone performance was fine for what it was, but I felt the Embassy organizers had done her a disservice by putting her in the show.  She fit in the lineup about as well as a didgeridoo player might.

“She’s not so bad,” I told the man, and then I pointed out the RC Cola station for all his refreshment needs.

“Come on, man,” he pleaded, “I need more than cola.”

“There’s a shop across the street,” he continued.  “Let’s go get a bottle.”

He needed my help because anything he might purchase would be confiscated at the security checkpoint.  My Embassy badge was his golden ticket for smuggling booze inside, or so he hoped. 

The booze store: so close, yet so far away.

I spent the next few minutes deflecting his requests and ultimately ditching him.

I can't speak for the other 500 Uzbeks at the concert, but Apollo certainly had this guy's number.

Uzbekistan: RC Cola Factory Tour

RC Cola is a fixture in America, especially in the South, but it’s also making a name for itself in Uzbekistan.  I grew up with RC (yes, sometimes with peanuts, sometimes with MoonPies), so when the Embassy’s morale office organized a tour to the RC factory in Tashkent, it was a no-brainer.  I signed up Eitan and me.

The facility is on the edge of the city, and after a twenty-minute drive, we were ready to get started.

There were about twenty people total on the tour, our colleagues and their family members, and as we were ushered into the tasting room, it struck me that Eitan and I were the only adults there without accompanying children.  I didn’t feel out of place exactly, but I did wonder why none of our childless colleagues had attended.  I guess some view soda as a childhood treat.

In the tasting room, we all took seats around little plastic tables.  Then the staff presented us with samples of RC as well as thick, plastic bottles that were about two inches long.  These little bottles, given to us as souvenirs, were the same type that would be expanded into half-liter bottles on the factory floor through the magic of heat, pressure, and mechanics.

The general manager welcomed us to the facility, and then with the help of his lab-coated quality control manager, he walked us through the tasting.

“First we must look at the product,” he told us.

“Hold it up to the light,” he instructed.  “The color should be dark.”

We dutifully held up our glasses for the visual inspection.  Check!

“Now swirl it gently,” he continued, “and put the glass to your nose.”

“Take in the aroma!” he exclaimed.

We dutifully swirled and sniffed, and at this point, I noticed some people rolling their eyes.

“Now take a small sip,” he told us, “and roll it around in your mouth.”

“Let it roll over your tongue!” he gushed.  “Feel the bubbles!”

The eye-rolling intensified.  Were we drinking wine or cola?

“Now,” the GM concluded, “if you like what you taste, you should drink freely.”

Whew!  What a relief!  We all drank freely.

“Does everyone like it?” the GM asked.

Whether people genuinely liked it or they were just being polite, everyone had nice things to say about their RC experience.  The praise wasn’t quite universal, though.

“I don’t like it,” a young girl in the back of the room announced.

The GM laughed this off while the girl’s mortified parents reminded her that if she didn’t have something nice to say she shouldn’t say anything at all.

We resumed our soda sipping as our hosts told us a bit more about the operation.  In addition to RC, the factory also bottled water.  It was a family-owned venture, and they were happy to be the sole supplier of RC in Uzbekistan.

“Has anyone tasted RC before in America?” the GM asked.

I didn’t feel like raising my hand, but a few other people played along.

“And does it taste the same?” the GM continued.

“Yes,” one of my colleagues replied, “it’s pretty much the same.”

I knew this was the wrong answer, and the GM responded as I knew he would.

“Actually,” he said, “the formula we use here is a bit different than the one you are used to in America.”

Pretty much every soda manufacturer tweaks their formulas for overseas markets, usually adjusting the sweetness of the product, to suit local tastes.  However, the flavor profile is basically the same.  That’s what makes a Coke a Coke or in this case, what makes an RC an RC.

Next, the GM opened the floor to questions.

“Will you ever make RC clear?” a pony-tailed girl asked.

I think she was envisioning something akin to Crystal Pepsi, but the GM recoiled at the question.

“Cola must always be black!” he responded with a hint of indignation.

Since the topic of color was broached, however, he astutely took the opportunity to mention some future offerings from the factory.

“We’ll be launching a clear soft drink soon,” he told us, “like Sprite, but different.”

“After that we plan to introduce an orange soda,” he continued, “like Fanta, but different.”

I liked how he referenced these other beverages and then made sure to differentiate from them.

With the exciting news of RC Sprite and RC Fanta on the horizon, our session in the tasting room came to a close.

We headed to the factory floor and suited up in flimsy smocks.

Our guide on the factory floor gave us plenty of specs.  This process required this much water.  This machine produced this many gallons of soda per hour.  This extruder was heated to such and such a temperature and could form some impressive quantity of bottles per day.  It was all very informative, and it all went in one ear and out the other.

We were all too busy watching the specialized machines dancing their ballet under the watchful eyes of a team of guys who were trying their hardest not to acknowledge us.  I couldn’t blame them for their reaction, though.  I’d do the same thing if twenty people appeared in my office with a guide and lined up in front of my desk.

Pay no attention to the tourists behind you.

Both lines were running during our tour, so we got to watch bottles of both RC and water scooting around on conveyor belts.

Then after about 15 minutes, the show was over.  We de-smocked and emerged into the sunlight where a few RC employees presented us with t-shirts and free bottles of RC for the road.

It was a fine ending to the outing, like a refreshing belch after a frosty glass of RC.

U!S!A!  U!S!A!

Uzbekistan: Dining Out: Angelina

Keen to find some go-to neighborhood joints, Eitan and I decided to try Angelina, a Korean restaurant, one evening for dinner.

The tree out front, perennially draped with Christmas lights, beckoned us inside, and soon the hostess was leading us into the dining room.

Two men were seated at a table by the restroom, but otherwise, the place was empty.  Eitan and I sat at a table on the back wall.

The dining room itself looked as though it had started as a temporary structure and was later converted to a permanent one.  The room was painted white with a tree growing in the middle and a bar to the side.

When our waitress appeared, I requested an English menu.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have one.

This was not a problem, however, because I already knew what I wanted.

“Can I get bibimbap?” I asked.

The waitress stared at me blankly.

Stepping in to fill the language gap, Eitan conversed for a few minutes with the waitress.

Having sorted out some details, he turned back to me.

“They have a dish with a lot of meat,” he said.

As this wasn’t very descriptive, I wanted to know a bit more.

“What else is there?” I asked.

At this point the waitress leaned in, and in a low whisper, she asked Eitan a question.

“She wants to know if you eat pork,” he told me.

This hushed approach was a bit amusing.  Plenty of Uzbek Muslims eat pork too, but I guess many don’t necessarily like to advertise the fact in public.

Once I admitted to eating pork, the waitress recommended another dish, although the only thing clear to me was that it contained pork.

Before we had come to Uzbekistan and during our first few days in country, Eitan had assured me he would help me navigate these scenarios since he’s conversational in both Russian and Uzbek.  At Angelina, however, I could see he was growing tired of being the middleman, my seeing-eye dog, my Sherpa.  The message was received, and so, from ten pages of menu, all I knew was that they had a “dish with a lot of meat” and a dish with pork.  I didn’t get any clarity on the bibimbap.

I chose the dish with a lot of meat, accompanied by vodka.

In Uzbekistan, vodka is always served with a chaser, and on this occasion, I decided to try the curious jar on the counter filled with sliced fruit – the house compote.

Eitan and I drank our vodka and compote while we waited for our food, and we both agreed that the compote was a bad choice.  It was so sweet and syrupy (as I guess it’s meant to be) that we ordered a Coke as a less-sweet alternative.

Soon the complimentary salads arrived that are served at most Korean eateries, and fifteen minutes after that, our food arrived.

As advertised, I was presented a big plate of meat with sliced onion on top.  And Eitan received a big beautiful bowl of salmon bibimbap!  If they had salmon bibimbap, I reasoned, they surely also had traditional beef bibimbap, which is what I had wanted all along.  There was no point in making a fuss at this point, however, so I ate my plate of meat.

plate of meat

As we were eating, the two other diners were clearly taking advantage of the fact that the place was deserted.  They kept demanding “Arab music,” and the bartender was quick to comply.  Unfortunately, it seemed the restaurant only had one suitable number on the playlist, and we had to listen to the same belly-dancing song blasting through the room over and over again.

Eventually our fellow diners left, and Eitan and I were the only people left.  The music returned to a normal volume, and the playlist was allowed to continue unfettered.  The staff also took the opportunity to chat with us.

The bartender asked us where we were from and some other basic questions, and in turn, we asked him about the other offering at Angelina, karaoke.

He gave us a tour of the private singing rooms and left us back at our table with a few copies of his business card.

Then we settled our bill and bibimbapped on home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bottom line on Angelina:

Food:

    Tasty
    Average ü
    Bad

Service:

    Attentive
    Average ü
    Lacking

Overall Experience:

    Memorable
    Enjoyable ü
    Passable
    Forgettable
    Regrettable

Uzbekistan: Dining Out: Broadway Lounge Bar

“Do you have an English menu?” I asked.

The waitress stared blankly back at me.

When Eitan posed the same question in Russian, however, the light bulb clicked on.  Our waitress retreated to the bar and returned with an English menu.

All the usual suspects were on offer, from soups to salads to pasta, but the burger page caught my eye, in large part due of the unnatural bun colors.

a rainbow of buns

I opted for the Broadway burger, which came with a regular bun, and Eitan went for a Greek salad and lentil soup.

When I tried to order, a small problem revealed itself.  While the waitress had provided us with an English menu, she couldn’t speak the language herself.  Furthermore, not every menu item had a corresponding photo, so it wasn’t possible to order by pointing.  Eitan had to order everything in Russian, and had he not been there, I would have been left struggling.  It would seem the English menu was only marginally useful.

As Eitan and I waited for our food and sipped our beer, excitement bubbled up at a table across the room.  About a dozen religious women, their heads modestly covered with scarves, were celebrating a birthday.  After one of the women received a cake, they positioned themselves for a group photo, the waitress manning the camera.

Throughout the course of their party, Eitan and I watched numerous elaborate drinks glide by on the waitress’s tray.  Alas, they were all mocktails since the establishment didn’t sell any alcohol beyond beer.

When our food was nearly ready, the waitress returned with some supplies.  She gave Eitan a spoon and then presented me with a sharper knife and two black latex gloves.  These gloves were meant to protect my hands from any burger leakage, but I wasn’t interested.

As a colleague put it, “What’s next?  Gloves for ribs?”

He’s right; it’s a slippery slope indeed.

A man who was sitting on the patio just outside our window made use of the gloves, and no doubt, he looked peculiar.  It was almost as if he had been murdering someone when he got a hankering for a good burger.

Our food arrived soon after glove-man’s did, and despite a lack of protective gear, we enjoyed our lunch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bottom line on Broadway Lounge Bar:

Food:

    Tasty
    Average ü
    Bad

Service:

    Attentive
    Average ü
    Lacking

Overall Experience:

    Memorable
    Enjoyable ü
    Passable
    Forgettable
    Regrettable

Uzbekistan: Tales from the Bar: Elvis Bar

It was our first weekend in Uzbekistan, so when a colleague invited Eitan and me for a drink, we were more than happy to accept.  We were heading to Elvis Bar for some live music.

From Tulepo to Tashkent

Elvis Bar is a modest establishment, but, already aware of this fact, our friends had reserved a table.  A few other people joined once we arrived, and we ended up with a party of six.

Eitan and I ordered vodka sodas, and our friends, whisky cokes, and soon enough the band set up and began their show.

The band was a trio, and the lead singer, with his falsetto vocals and wide range, was well suited to cover musicians like Radiohead, Cold Play, and Robbie Williams.

In such an intimate venue, we were only a few meters from the band, and it struck me how the performers seemed to avoid eye contact.  The lead singer spent much of the time with his eyes closed or looking down, and the other two seemed to prefer staring off into space.

I'm told much of the Elvis artwork was acquired at a U.S. Embassy auction.

The performance went on for quite a while, and our focus on the music waxed and waned.  There was plenty of chatting at the table, some hearty laughs, numerous drink refills, and random bits of food appearing, usually inspired by something we saw on a neighboring table.

Our group also spent a lot of time on door duty.  The bar's main door fit snugly (overly so, it would seem) into the door jamb, and getting it closed required a strong tug (or a push from the opposite side).  Without fail, person after person would walk outside, lightly pulling the door behind him as he exited the room.  And without fail, the door would pop open, exposing us to a draft.

Often times, someone at my table would shout out some helpful advice - "Close the damn door!" or a variation thereof - but it would generally go unheeded.  As such, one of us had to get up every two or three minutes to handle it, and naturally, this was a bit of a nuisance.

When the band eventually finished, they packed up their gear and the bartender turned on some Top 40 hits.  Then something interesting happened at the door for a change.

Two Uzbek men, clearly intoxicated, got into a scuffle.  The less drunk of the two was trying to force the other one out of the bar, so we had a front-row seat to some aggressive pushing.

It didn't take long for the security guard to intervene, but his response was not what I expected.  In most places around the world, a bouncer would have, well, bounced these two guys.  Or he would have at least thrown out one of them to end the drama.

In this case, the guard did the opposite.  He locked the door and counseled the guys until things calmed down.

The discussion was just out of earshot, and in a language I don't understand, but I like to think it started with a classic Simpsons' line, "Let's stop the fussin' and a-feudin'."

Whatever was said, the three guys eventually came to an understanding.

Like I said, this was not what I expected to happen.

"What gives?" I asked my friends.

As explained to me, if the guard had ejected the men and they continued fighting outside and created a disturbance, it could have potentially attracted the attention of the police.  If that happened, the police could close the whole establishment for promoting unruly behavior.  Thus, to avoid this fate, the guard played the role of peacemaker.

We got the check not long after the fight broke up, and I had my first Uzbek sticker-shock moment.  The bill came to 1.5 million soum.  That's about $180, which is totally reasonable for six people drinking and eating for five hours, but all the zeros on the receipt were shocking at first glance.

We scraped together enough to pay, and when we left the bar, I made sure to pull the door completely shut.

As we stood on the curb trying to hail a taxi, a friendly group of drunk Brits showed up from another bar, also in search of a taxi.  They found a ride before we did, and as one chap in the group fell particularly ungracefully into the back seat, he implored us to join him at some club I had never heard of.  I wouldn't be surprised if he had extended the same invitation to the lamp post.

Uzbekistan: Bek

For our first restaurant experience in Tashkent, Eitan wanted to try a branch of Bek that was near our house.  I think he remembered this chain from his previous visits to Uzbekistan.

We found the place without much ado and took a table toward the back of the main room.  On the stage up front, a man was wowing the crowd with his Michael Jackson dance moves.  As MJ's hits played, this man performed the matching choreography.  I couldn't see him that well from our table, but he seemed to be doing a pretty good job.

As the show continued, a waitress came to take our order.  We mulled over the drink options for a minute, and something caught Eitan's eye.

"You wanna try Uzbek champagne?" he asked me.

I was game, so we ordered a bottle.  Eitan also ordered a few salads for his dinner, but I wasn't hungry at the time.

By now, the Michael Jackson performer had finished his act, and a group of traditional dancers was on the stage.  This group consisted of three ladies and a man.  The man, who was dressed all in black and reminded me of Westley from The Princess Bride, was leaping around the women like a gazelle.

Heads in the crowd popped up as people set aside their vodka to clap along to the music.

When our "champagne" appeared at the table, Eitan and I were sure we had received the wrong bottle.  According to the label, we received a bottle of Chardonnay.  There is such a thing as sparkling Chardonnay, of course, but this is not what we received.

For starters, the bottle was not under pressure and was closed with a standard wine cork.  When our waitress, Maftuna, popped it, there was nary a pop at all.  This was surely a normal bottle of Chardonnay.

When Maftuna poured the first glass, however, things became more ambiguous, as a tiny stream of bubbles snaked from the bottom of the glass toward the surface.  These bubbles only lasted for a few seconds, however, and led me to believe that we were not drinking a sparkling wine at all, but rather an immature wine still undergoing fermentation.

The bottle only cost $3, so we didn't bother to send it back.

With notes of apple, vinegar, and curiously, salami, my first sip of the Uzbek champagne was, uh, memorable.

Meanwhile, the traditional dancers had wrapped things up, and booming Arabian music filled the hall.  Enter the belly-dancers.

Half a dozen young women wearing sheer fabrics and sparkles convened on the stage from a few different directions.  They only gyrated for a few minutes, however, before they began leaving the stage.

"Crap!" I thought to myself.

I'm not a fan of audience participation.  I don't want the comedian on stage to talk to me; I don't want the clown at the circus to pull me aside for a gag, and I don't want a dancer to come to my table.  As I watched the ladies fan out across the room, I felt a sense of dread.

Since Eitan and I were sitting toward the back of the room, it took several minutes for the ladies to reach us.  When they reached us, though, they really reached us.

Most diners had one or at most, two, dancers at their tables, but we ended up with four.  Perhaps like animals, they had smelled my fear.

Completely surrounded, I sipped on my special wine and stared straight at the table.  I would have been hard pressed to make the encounter more awkward without, say, covering my face with a napkin or laying my head on the table.

Eitan seemed to be enjoying the personal show more than I was, but after a few minutes, even he had reached his limit.  In an attempt to send the ladies on their way, Eitan pulled out his wallet and started tipping.

He gave the first two ladies 1,000 soum (about 12 U.S. cents) each, and they took their leave.

Eitan had no more 1,000-soum notes left at this point, and he discreetly tucked away his 5,000-, 10,000-, and 50,000-soum bills.  Neither of us felt like paying real money for a show we were never much into.

"What about this one?" he asked me.

He was holding a 200-soum note (about 2 U.S. cents).

"I guess you can try it," I answered.

Eitan handed it to one of the two remaining ladies at our table.  As we were now tipping in pennies, the other lady threw in the towel and left empty-handed.  The woman who had received the 200 soum wasn't happy either.  She threw it down on the table and continued to dance, trying to elicit a bigger tip.  After another minute, however, she too realized she was fighting a losing battle.  She collected the 200-soum note that she had rejected only moments before and followed her friends into the dressing room.

After the belly-dancers vacated, the DJ announced a birthday.

Right on cue, the birthday girl and her entourage emerged from one of the private rooms off the big room.  The girl stood in the center of the stage holding a bouquet of roses while her friends formed a ring around her and sang Happy Birthday (in English, to my surprise).  As they were merrily singing, the chef appeared with his apron and puffy hat, and presented the young lady a cake with a substantial sparkler erupting from the top.

I understand that smiling protocols vary in different cultures around the world, but I had to laugh at this birthday celebration.

While a boisterous crowd was singing, the girl and the chef stood in the middle of the circle, side-by-side and completely stone-faced, holding a cake emitting a stream of sparks.  It was like the painting American Gothic with light pyrotechnics.

After the English birthday song, the girl's friends sang a round in Russian, and the structured part of the evening drew to a close.  The DJ kicked on some Top 40.

As Eitan finished his dinner and we both worked on the champagne, a gaggle of older Uzbeks took to the dance floor, arms elevated, swaying from side to side to Despacito.

Uzbekistan: Our First 24 Hours

All good things must come to an end, so after five weeks of vacation, Eitan and I set out for our new home in Tashkent.  Traveling from Newark to Frankfurt to Istanbul and finally to Tashkent, the trip took about 28 hours door to door.

Our flight landed in Tashkent around 12:40 AM, and I was feeling duly beat-down as I made my way down the planeside stairs to the buses waiting below.  It was a brisk 40 degrees outside (4 C), but it felt glorious, even in short sleeves, having flown sauna class on Turkish Airlines for the past four and a half hours.

All the plane's passengers were packed into three or four buses, and when the buses offloaded everyone at the terminal building minutes apart, unsurprisingly there was a substantial bottleneck.  With only a few stanchions to organize the passengers, a mob basically formed in front of the passport control area, in which there were three or four immigration officers working the windows.  Two facilitators were in place to keep the crowd at bay, but it wasn't an easy task.  These two gents spent their time pleading and reasoning with, and sometimes barking at, irritable passengers who just wanted to go home.

In addition to the passport control mob, there was a smaller mob outside the visa-on-arrival window.  I needed to avail myself of this service, so Eitan went through the normal line, and I queued up for my visa.  Having identified me as a diplomat, one of the facilitators moved me to the front of the line, and I didn't have to wait long.  As my visa was being processed, however, trouble was brewing at the window.  Three young men from Israel had popped up at the front of the line to "ask a question," but the others were convinced they were simply trying to cut.  Tempers were rising as I left with my new visa and cleared passport control.

I made my way to baggage claim and met up with Eitan.  He was standing with our sponsors, Dale and Sandra, two kind individuals who had made logistical arrangements before our arrival, stocked our new house with supplies, and shown up to the airport in the middle of the night to meet us.

We made our introductions and chatted as we waited for Eitan's and my bags to appear, but after 10 or 15 minutes, I noticed that our bags had already arrived.  They were sitting beside the conveyor belt.

By the time we got home, unpacked a few things, and went to bed, it was 3 AM.  At noon we went into the office.

On that first day at the Embassy, we met with the human resources staff to begin the check-in process, took a tour of the compound, and met our new colleagues.  Neither Eitan nor I had slept well, so a light day of administrative processing was enough.

In contrast to the mega embassy we had left in Kabul where the average person knows a few dozen faces out of the hundreds on the compound, the much smaller embassy in Tashkent had a friendlier, small-town feel.  And just like on Cheers, everyone knew our names.  As we walked around the compound we were approached several times by new colleagues.

"Are you Chris and Eitan?" someone would ask.

People were expecting us so when they spotted two new guys walking around with blue badges, they put two and two together.

The same thing happened with some of the Uzbek staff too.

When we went to talk to the cell-phone technician, we introduced ourselves.

"I know who you are," he told us.

Everyone we met, including my immediate officemates, seemed nice.  As usually happens, though, I shook maybe thirty hands that first day and I retained only about three names.

After work, Eitan and I took a walk around our neighborhood.  Our house is located about five minutes from a major road, lined with shops, restaurants, and a Metro stop, so we had plenty of things to see.

After we had walked around for about 45 minutes, we went to an open-air market and Eitan bought us some pumpkin somsas to try.  Somsa is the Uzbek name for samosa.  Fresh out of the oven, these were a nice treat.

While we were at the market, we browsed the produce, and I was pleasantly surprised at the prices.  At first glance I didn't see any fruits and vegetables priced at more than 50 cents per pound, and many items were considerably lower.  The selection was nice as well.

Before we went home, we made one last stop to check out the supermarket.  The layout was pretty user-friendly, and even though I don't speak Russian or Uzbek, it was easy to find everything.

As always, I kept watch for anything unique as we made our way through the aisles, and it was in the egg section that I hit pay dirt.

I picked up some chicken eggs for the house, and then I noticed boxes of quail eggs next to them.

"Wow," I thought, "quail eggs!"

Then I looked past the quail eggs and noticed something much cooler: ostrich eggs!  These made the quail eggs look boring by comparison.

chicken eggs are so old fashioned

Costing only about $8 an egg, I definitely see some ostrich omelets in my future.

Having explored for two hours, though, we called it a night.  Sandra and Dale had prepared us a pasta dish, so we warmed it up for dinner and paired it with a local wine.

We went to bed twenty-two hours after we had landed, and I reflected on our interesting first day.

"It's going to be another good tour," I thought as I turned off the bedside lamp.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 12)

In our final weeks of shopping in Kabul, Eitan and I finally got around to ordering traditional Afghan outfits.  Consisting of a long tunic and baggy pants and affectionately called a man dress, man-jams, and other descriptive names by expats, the Afghan men's suit is similar to that found in other countries.  What sets it apart from some of the others, however, is that it often comes with elaborate embroidery on the chest and sometimes on the sleeves.

Once we made our intentions known at the bazaar, we were directed to a shop specializing in Afghan clothes.  Happy to get us properly attired, the shopkeeper took our measurements.  Then, after negotiating the price, we completed the deal.

"Honestly," he told us, "I have never sold a suit for such a cheap price."

This was a pretty standard claim, so we didn't pat ourselves on the back too hard.

About a week later, we returned to pick up our purchases.

I tried mine on first, and the arms were a good three inches too short.

Noticing my concern, the shopkeeper chimed in with an explanation.

"This is perfect," he told me, "because we roll up the sleeves most of the time."

"See, like this," he continued, as he showed me his own suit.

It was true that he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Can you roll them down, please?" I asked.

And sure enough, when he did, his sleeves reached all the way to his wrists.

Eitan's suit had the same problem as mine, and the shopkeeper knew what had to be done.

"I'll redo them," he replied with his head hung low.

I did appreciate his attempt to pull the wool over our eyes, even if his explanation came up, well, a bit short.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Western slang, a "loose woman" is a woman of loose or relaxed morals, especially regarding sex.  She is promiscuous; a "bad girl."

In Afghanistan, there is a similar concept, and coincidentally, the phrase itself is similar.

"That woman always wears a loose scarf," I heard an Afghan colleague say one day.  The disdain was evident in his voice, and I quickly got the point.

At best, the implication was that this woman was immodest.  The more common understanding, however, is that a "loose-scarf woman" is basically a "loose woman" since a proper woman would never expose her hair to an unrelated male.

Over the course of my two years in Kabul, I would hear this phrase, "loose-scarf woman," several times from both my American and Afghan colleagues.

Perhaps some loose-scarf women are in fact revealing carnal desires, but surely some are guilty of nothing more than rushing out of the house with an insufficient number of pins to hold their scarves firmly in place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As we were gathered for a so-called carpet lunch one Friday, my colleague Bronty took a bite of fried chicken.

"This is delicious!" he gushed.  "Is that saffron I'm tasting?"

Saffron doesn't taste like anything much to me, but it seems like most people who can identify it describe the taste as delicate.

"I don't think they'd use saffron," I replied.  "The flavor of fried chicken is too bold."

Bronty dismissed my opinion, however, and when our host walked by the next time, he tried again.

"Is there saffron in this chicken?" he asked.

"No," the carpet seller answered, "we only use it for color; it doesn't have any flavor."

Then he hammered the point home.

"We would never use it for fried chicken," he told Bronty, with a case-closed attitude.

We finished eating our chicken - which was served with bread, French fries, dumplings, kebabs, and soft drinks - and then it was time for dessert.

"Amazing!" Bronty exclaimed. "I love almonds!"

"Good grief," I thought to myself, "here we go again."

"I'm pretty sure this is made from pistachios," I answered.

Again, Bronty sought a second opinion from our host, and again, he was proven wrong.

"Right, it's pistachios," he conceded, "and I think I'm also picking up some..."

"Can we give it a rest?" I thought to myself.

"...cardamom," Bronty finished.

As my father is fond of saying, even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and again.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 11)

Sometimes you have to develop a friendship, and sometimes you find an insta-friend.

Eitan and I sidled up to the bar at the European Union compound one night, and as we were waiting for our drinks to appear, a Frenchman walked into the room.  I’m not sure what drew his attention to us, but he crossed the room without delay and introduced himself.  For the purposes of this story, I’ll call him Jean-Luc Picard.

“Hi,” he started, “I’m Jean-Luc Picard.”

He spoke with a heavy French accent, and as happens for me with nearly every language, I thought he sounded a bit like a vampire while he was speaking English.

I don’t generally like to “work a room,” so when Jean-Luc started telling stories, I was more than happy to stick around.  We had a lot of laughs as he told me about his exploits outside the fortified walls of the diplomatic quarter.

Eventually, Jean-Luc left to eat pizza with his boss, and I started talking to some German aid workers.  Before long, though, Jean-Luc Picard was back.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.  “I just need you to clear everyone away; I’m going to do a trick.”

We were standing by a fire pit, and I agreed to assist.  In a moment, I had everyone standing a meter or two back from the edge.

At that point, Jean-Luc Picard walked up and did his thing.  Taking a sip from his beer bottle and blowing the liquid over the fire, he created a large fireball.

“I couldn’t find any kerosene,” he told me with a laugh, “but cooking oil works too.”

He made four fireballs in total, and the reaction was mixed.  A good many people clapped and cheered, but about a quarter of the crowd was decidedly unamused.

I thought the whole spectacle, including the reaction, was pretty great.

One person who wasn’t amused, however, was the bartender.  He pulled Jean-Luc and me aside and told us we would be banned from the compound if we pulled any more stunts.  I didn’t see how any of this was my problem, though.  The bartender should have been thanking me for maintaining a safe perimeter.

Before he left us, the bartender had one last thing to say to Jean-Luc Picard:  “You can pour your drink on the fire, if you want, but no more blowing.”

Once he was out of earshot, Jean-Luc turned to me, still laughing.

“What an idiot!” he exclaimed. “He thinks this is beer.”

He proceeded to sprinkle his bottle of oil over the fire, creating more flare-ups, but the bartender never returned.

As it happened, Eitan and I would be heading on vacation a few days after the reception, and Jean-Luc would be relocating to France while we were gone.  He invited us to his farewell bash, which he assured us would be insane, but it wasn’t meant to be.

The friendship had quickly sparked, flashed, and vanished, not unlike a cooking-oil fireball.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you call this?” the young Afghan clerk at our convenience store asked me one day.

He was squeezing his cheek, and I noticed the object of his question.

“That’s a zit,” I told him.

He thanked me.  Then I finished my transaction and left the store.

I didn’t get far, though, before the clerk came running after me.

“Can you come help me?” he asked.

Slightly curious, I followed him back in the store.  He didn’t return to his seat at the register, and headed instead to the personal care aisle.

“I don’t see any for zit,” he told me.  “Which shall I use?”

For such a small shop, the array of facial products was pretty impressive.  And I soon understood the clerk’s confusion.

While there were no “zit” creams, the shelves had many other products flashing all the right keywords:  things like “pimple preventer”, “blackhead reducer”, “blemish control”, “oily skin wash”, “breakout shield”, “clean and clear”, and so on.

“Basically these all do the same thing,” I told him.  “Just pick one and see how it goes.”

“How can I choose?” he pleaded

By this point, I was losing interest rapidly.  I handed him some Clearasil.  “Maybe this one,” I told him.

“Remember,” I told him, “having a zit can be a good thing because it means your face is still producing oils.”

He looked at me dumbfounded.  This was a bit of advice a former Ambassador used to give me whenever I’d have a breakout.  I still think of it when I get a zit, and I still don’t appreciate it.

Then, with my sage advice dispensed, I went about my day.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 10)

During a staff meeting one day, my Afghan colleagues were explaining how Afghan women aren’t without power (as many people perceive) and how inside the home many rule the roost with an iron fist.  They illustrated their point with a story.

My colleague, TJ, joined his wife for lunch one afternoon.

As the meal commenced, the food wasn’t to his liking.  TJ continued eating, not wanting to offend, but he eventually made the mistake of opening his mouth.

“Dear,” he said, “the food is a bit salty today.”

At this point, according to his version of things, a firestorm erupted, and his wife spent the next 20 minutes punching him into submission.

All the Afghans in the room, men and women alike, broke out laughing, and sensing it was OK, the Americans joined in after a moment’s delay.

One of the Afghan men then offered a small clarification.  “This is not the way in the whole country,” he told us, still chuckling.

“If the food is bad in the countryside, the husband beats his wife,” he continued, “but if the food is bad in Kabul, the wife beats her husband.”

“Only in Kabul is everything reversed.”

Once the “beating protocol” was clarified, the American laughter tapered off, and the Afghans kept going, unapologetically.

Soon an awkward silence settled over the conference room, and I started to wonder if we should have laughed at all.  Sure the story was comical, but at the end of the day, violence is violence, no matter who plays the role of aggressor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is constant construction on the Embassy compound, and one day after work, I was walking by an excavation project.  The area was surrounded by fencing, which was draped in green privacy screening, and three guys were standing just inside the fence.  Night was falling, and the light meant to illuminate the dig site served another purpose as well:  It silhouetted the three gentlemen by the fence perfectly.

Normally this would not have been so entertaining, but as I was walking by, one of the guys flipped the hard hat off his colleague.  This earned him an elbow to the ribs, and soon the three men were jostling around in a routine that would have made the Three Stooges proud.  I only watched for a few seconds, but I left with a smile on my face.

It also reminded me of a similar event from the year before that involved some window-washers.  As they perched on rigging outside our offices, we were instructed to draw the shades, which once again created an interesting silhouette effect.  The men worked with the sun at their backs, and their squeegees and whatnot dangled from their belts between their legs.  The resulting shadows were nothing less than obscene, and office after office, people were in hysterics at the images dancing across the window shades.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first days back at work after a vacation are always the same.   Everyone gives you the old, “welcome back!” and you find yourself repeating your holiday highlights a few dozen times to people who probably only prompted you to be polite.

When I say, “everyone,” of course, I mean my friends and colleagues.  After my recent vacation, though, I was surprised at the people who welcomed me back.  In addition to the usual cast of characters, some of the cafeteria workers welcomed me back as did some of the American guards and even one of our Nepalese Gurkhas.  These are people I see around and say hi to, but I don’t even know their names.

The most touching of all, perhaps, was one of the janitors in my building.  I greet him in the hallways nearly every day, and whenever I ask him how he is doing, he always places his hand on his heart and simply says, “Thank you, sir.”  I found this to be peculiar at first, as he was not answering the question.  I came to appreciate later, though, that he was expressing his gratitude that I took the time to inquire about his well-being.  The answer, it seems, wasn’t important; only the gesture mattered.  He also doesn’t speak English well, so his trademark “Thank you, sir” served to acknowledge the question while simultaneously avoiding further conversation.

In any case, the day after I returned, I saw him in the hallway.

As always, I asked him how he was doing, and for the first time ever, he changed the script.

“How is family?” he asked me in his shaky English.

Kabul: The Marine Memorial Wall

"Are you sure you don't want to sponsor anyone in particular?" the Marine at the table asked me.

Committed to building a memorial wall in the Marine House at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, our Marine Security Guards were collecting donations from the community to honor the Marines who had died while serving in Afghanistan.  A donation purchased a name plate for the wall, and many of the people stepping up to the table had a personal tie to someone who had made the ultimate sacrifice.  Some people lined up to support a brother-in-arms they’d known on the battlefield.  Some were supporting a friend from back home.  I didn’t know anyone on the list, however, and I told the Marine as much.

“Not a problem,” he replied.  “I’ll put you down here… for Centanni.”

I would be sponsoring Marine Lance Corporal Rick J. Centanni, and I felt compelled to learn a bit about his life.

Hailing from Yorba Linda, California, he played football at Esperanza High School in Anaheim – donning Aztec jersey #30.  He joined the Marine Corps after graduation and ultimately wanted to be a police officer like his father.  In late 2009, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, he deployed to Afghanistan where his unit was tasked with disrupting the Taliban’s supply lines from Pakistan.   He died on March 24, 2010, when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Marjah, Helmand Province.  He was 19 years old.

A few months after the fundraising had begun at the Embassy, the Marines had secured enough money for the project, and the wall was constructed and installed.  On the day of the unveiling, the house was packed.  Coming late from the office, I stood with the overflow crowd which had spilled out the door.  I could hear the muted sounds of the speeches and the thunderous applause from the audience, but I was too far away to make out the words.  Then the wall was revealed.

When the ceremony concluded, the Marines invited everyone to raise a glass to the fallen, and a happy hour started at the bar at the other end of the room.  There are many military memorials associated with bars, and the Marines were certain that this is just how the fallen would want it.

While the happy hour kicked off, donors were encouraged to find their Marine among the hundreds represented on the wall.  The name plates were arranged by death date, and I found Rick toward the center of the display, four rows from the bottom, along with his fellow Marine, Sergeant Major Robert J. Cottle, who died in the same incident.

The name plates were made of lapis lazuli, Afghanistan’s prized blue semi-precious stone, and sized just smaller than a dollar bill, they had some heft to them.  I removed Rick’s plate from the wall, and as I turned it over in my hands, I couldn’t help but think:  This was his party, and like so many Marines around the world, he wasn’t even old enough to order a beer.

Thank you for your service; R.I.P.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 9)

Taking advantage of the Embassy cinema, Eitan and I caught a screening of Doctor Strange one Friday afternoon.  Eitan had some difficulty seeing over the head of the tall guy in front of him, but all in all, we enjoyed the show.

As we were walking out of the theater, though, I was scratching my head.

“So why do they call him Dr. Strangelove?” I asked Eitan.

“They don’t,” he replied.  “That’s a James Bond movie.”

This wasn’t correct either, of course, but it jogged my memory.

“Actually,” I responded, “I think it’s a Stanley Kubrick film.”

Sometimes you reach your answer by the scenic route.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not long after I wrote about the post office and stamps, the theme came up again.

I was in the Embassy mail room collecting a package when my colleague Reese approached me at the service window.

“Check this out,” he told me.

In his hand he had a letter addressed to somewhere mundane like Wells Fargo Financial Services, and in the corner there were several old stamps pasted on.

“Aren’t these cool?!?” he asked me.  “They’re all from 1910!”

“And the best part is that the post office has to accept them,” he continued.  “All stamps, no matter how old, are considered legal postage.”

It was a fetching envelope to be sure.

“Nice!” I replied, “but isn’t a collection of hundred-year-old stamps worth more than the 49 cents required to mail a letter?”

“Nah,” Reese answered.  “I got a whole stack of ‘em at a yard sale.  The back of my car was completely filled with all kinds of stamps in glass frames.”

To me it seemed equivalent to using some rare coin like the 1913 Liberty Head nickel to buy a peppermint candy at a gas station counter.  Sure it works, but there are plenty of other, less historic monetary instruments that could be used.

Whether or not Reese’s stamps were worth anything, one thing was certain: an expired philatelist from Sheboygan was no doubt spinning in his grave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are always things that go bump in the night.  Occasionally, from the comfort of my bed, I hear drunks talking in the courtyard, a dish shifting in the dish rack, high-heels clicking in the hallway.

One night, however, there was something more dramatic.

I was fast asleep at 2:15 AM when the television turned on.  And not only did it turn on seemingly unprovoked, the volume was also kicked way up.  It switched on to CNN, which can be unsettling at times, but thankfully it isn’t nearly as creepy as say a baby laughing in the darkness.

Bolting upright in the bed, half in a fog, I wondered, “Is someone here?”

Now, I’m no fool.  Having seen both The Conjuring I and II, I knew it was a bad idea to confront a TV with a mind of its own, much like it’s best to ignore a music box playing independently in the attic.  At the same time, though, I knew I couldn’t let it continue.

I made my way out to the living room, and much to my surprise, there was a decomposing corpse in the easy chair with bugs crawling out of his mouth.

As if!  Actually there was nothing untoward.

I turned off the TV and went back to bed, but the nagging question remained: What happened?

Perhaps, I thought, my neighbors were watching TV and the wall separating our units was thin enough that the signal from their remote reached my TV.

Or maybe there was a timer feature on our TV that we had inadvertently activated.

The more I thought about it, however, the more far-fetched these theories seemed.  Obviously we were dealing with a ghost, and there was no need to dress it up in so-called logic.

Now where to find an exorcist in Kabul…

Kabul: To Mail a Letter

For my annual Christmas card distribution, I always try to use the local post, if possible, instead of the U.S. post to which I also have access.  Not only does it show confidence in the institutions of developing countries, I think it’s also pretty cool to get a card with colorful foreign postage and mysterious markings on it.

From Oslo to Port Moresby, going to the post office is always an interesting experience.  Often times it’s fun, and frequently, it’s frustrating.  In Afghanistan, the process for mailing a letter is further complicated by the security restrictions under which we operate.

Unable to go to the post office myself in Kabul, I turned to the Embassy’s concierge service.  Manned by Afghan employees, the concierge service runs errands for the compound-restricted American staff, for a fee.

I contacted the concierge and discussed my errand.  I wanted enough Afghan stamps to mail my cards to various destinations around the world.  I told the concierge the weight of each letter (18 grams) and provided a list of countries to which I would be mailing them.

“We don’t sell stamps,” the concierge manager told me.  “You can buy them at the KEEA store.”

The KEEA store on compound sells U.S. postage only, which is not what I wanted.

I explained again that I was interested in local stamps, not U.S., and that I was willing to pay the service charge.

The concierge had successfully gotten Afghan stamps for me the year before, so I knew it could be done.  The manager had changed since then, but I mentioned to the current manager that her predecessor had helped me out before.

“I’m on it!” she told me with much enthusiasm.

After four days of dead air, I received a call.

“Sir,” she told me, “I’m having too much trouble with your request.”

“I checked the whole city, and I cannot find the Pakistan post office, the Sweden post office, the Israel post office, or any of the rest on your list.”

Doh!  This was a touch annoying to be sure, but I had to laugh.  Then I went on to explain how international mail works.  Afghanistan is a member of all the major postal unions and a party to the relevant international agreements, so any local post office should be able to consult a chart and tell a customer how much postage is required to ship a letter weighing 18 grams to any country in the world.  I explained that mailing a letter to Sweden did not require one to find a Swedish post office; the Afghan post office should be able to handle it.  I also reiterated once more that the concierge had handled this for me last year.  The manager had changed, as I mentioned, but the previous one was still on compound working in a different job.  I encouraged the current one to consult him if she continued to struggle with the request.

“I think I’ve got it,” she told me.

Three days later, I received a call from one of the guys from the concierge office.  He was at the post office.

“Sir,” he asked me, “do you want the kind of stamps with little pictures?”  “That’s the only kind they have.”

The next day, I met the man, and he produced an envelope.  He sheepishly smiled as he let the contents slide out into his palm.

“Is this the right one?” he asked.

A stamp honoring buzkashi, the local horse sport.

Sure enough, he had a handful of assorted postage stamps.

One of them caught my eye.  It seemed to be for 14000 afghanis (US$210).

“A lot of zeros on this one,” I remarked.

“That’s just how we write 14,” he answered.

“OK,” I replied, “these look good.”

“I thought so,” he told me.  “I’m the one who got them last year.”

“Did you check the rates?” I asked.

“Yes,” he continued, “114 afghanis per letter.”

At about US$1.70, this was much higher than the year before.

“For which countries?” I asked.

“All of them,” he replied.  “Each country is 114.”

The year before, the rate had varied by country, and logically so.  Why would the rate for Pakistan, one hour away, be the same as Canada on the other side of the world?

The man insisted the pricing structure had changed since last year to the current flat-rate scheme (or at least that’s what the postman had told him).  I had my doubts, but with no way to verify, and having already wasted a week getting to this point, I accepted the price the man quoted.

By the time I finally had the full order of stamps in hand, nearly two weeks had passed since I had placed my order.

Each envelope required two or three stamps, and applying them was tedious.  I finished a modest stack each day and brought them to the Embassy mail room for submission to the local postman.  When I brought the first stack, there was confusion.  The clerk in the mail room was about to put the letters in the outgoing U.S. mailbag before I intercepted.

“These are for the Afghan post,” I pointed out.

This really sparked some interest, and seven other clerks gathered around.

Afghans don’t generally use postage stamps, and most have never handled one.  To mail a letter or a package, most Afghans go to the post office and present their parcel.  The postman inspects and meters it, and the customer pays.  After that, the customer leaves, and the postman prepares the parcel with appropriate postage stamps or a printed sticker showing postage paid or perhaps an ink stamp.  Apparently, no one keeps postage stamps at home like people do in the U.S.

The mail-room guys were fascinated with my letters, and they passed them around and admired the stamps.  Among other things, the stamps featured prominent Afghans, fighter jets, and polio eradication.

“I can’t believe you paid 14000 afghanis for this one,” one of the guys commented.

“That’s apparently how you write 14 here,” I replied.

The famous 14000 afghani stamp.

Another guy was doing some calculations as we chatted.

“Even if you count it as 14,” he told me, “that means you put 114 on each letter.”  “That’s way too much!”

“Well, that’s what I was told to put,” I answered.  “I guess it’s better to have too much rather than too little.”

The guys agreed, and I left as they continued reading aloud exotic destinations like Silver Spring, Ethiopia, and Ambunti.

The next morning, I got a call from one of the mail clerks.

“I’m at the post office,” he advised, “and they want to open your letters.”  “What should I do?”

“If that’s the procedure,” I answered, “it’s fine with me.”

The next day, I brought another stack of letters, and the clerk came to see me, clearly disappointed.

“They prefer for you to leave them open,” he told me.  “Now they have to cut each one open to inspect it and then tape it closed.”  “It’s making a lot of extra work for them.”

I didn’t feel much sympathy, though.  Perhaps if they were a little less intrusive they wouldn’t have so much extra work to do.  In any case, all of the letters had been sealed at this point, so there was no way to ease their burden.

After a few days like this, the postmen eventually stopped slicing into every letter and opted instead to open two or three randomly selected letters from the stack.

And despite the delays, the annoyances, and the laughs, Afghan Post came through a second year in a row with the first letters reaching their final destinations in a mere three weeks.

This stamp had apparently been sitting around for 34 years!