Uzbekistan: Frank the Rooster

If you’ve ever felt like you weren’t actually alone while in an empty house, well I have too.  And on one such night, I wasn’t.  I was typing on my laptop in my living room when I heard a commotion coming from the windows behind me.

Not expecting to hear anything, my pulse quickened, and I wheeled around in my chair.  Perched on the window sill and staring me down, there was a rooster.

This was both concerning and fantastic, and I regarded the creature for a moment through the glass.  With his particular countenance and bearing, this guy looked like a Frank to me, and I dubbed him as such.  With introductions finished, I considered his situation.

Take a picture, Frank; it'll last longer.

The area behind my house, where Frank was hanging out, is a useless piece of land.  The space extends about four feet from the back of the house, and it is completely surrounded, on three sides by a twenty-foot-high wall and on one side by the two-story house itself.  It’s a narrow, deep, enclosed area, and I knew Frank wouldn’t be able to fly out.  The roof of my back neighbors’ house comes pretty close to the top of the wall, so I think Frank must have been climbing on that roof and then jumped into my backyard.  No matter how he got inside, though, he was trapped now.

I had seen people walking with chickens tucked under their arms before, and they seemed perfectly peaceful and manageable.  I thought I would give it a go.  My plan was to go outside, catch Frank, and walk him around the neighborhood under my arm until I found his family.  What could go wrong?

As it turns out, plenty could go wrong, especially for a city slicker like myself.  Frank, who had moments before been standing so proudly and almost defiantly in the window, went in full panic mode the moment I opened the back door and joined him outside.  He jumped out of the window and started running around the small yard, shouting and generally making a fuss, as I tried to corner him.  I got a hand on him a few times, but eventually he wedged himself under the back stairs.  In his hiding place, there was a small mud puddle, and his white plumage was now well and truly soiled.  Even if I could have reached him, it would have been embarrassing to walk a filthy rooster around the neighborhood.

It was time to regroup.  Frank was trapped and I didn’t want him to starve, so I poured him a bowl of Cheerios and left him for the night.

Then I moved on to Plan B:  I would walk around the neighborhood, without Frank, and try to find his home.

Unable to speak Russian or Uzbek, I’m unable to communicate with most of my neighbors.  I typed “Did you lose a rooster?” into my translating app, and with the Russian equivalent on my phone screen, I set out.

I knew Frank lived behind me, having heard him crowing pretty much all the time, but I wasn’t sure exactly which house was his.

As I walked to the end of my street, I counted my steps.  Then as I turned down the street where I thought Frank lived, I walked back an equal amount of steps.  This should have put me in the right vicinity.

I knocked on the door of the house to which my step-count led me, and a man answered.

I showed him my phone, and he shook his head.  Then he reached for the phone, and I gave it to him.  Failing to find a Cyrillic keypad on my phone, he opened a translation app on his own phone and showed me his screen.

“I have no cock,” was his reply.

“That sounds like a personal problem,” I thought to myself, and I continued on my search.

After knocking on six houses, I was no closer to finding Frank’s home.  I walked back to my house, and on the way, I ran into one of the people who lives a few doors down from me, who also happens to speak a bit of English.  I knew it wasn’t his rooster, but I told him the story anyway, just for kicks.

“Eat him,” he told me with a wink.

He was half joking, or maybe three-quarters, but I didn’t want to eat someone else’s animal.  And even if I had wanted to, I would still have to catch him, which wasn’t likely.

I checked on his bowl of Cheerios and went to bed.

The next morning, Frank was up bright and early, and since he now lived downstairs, his crowing was more obnoxious than ever.

Running out of ideas, I moved on to Plan C:  I submitted a work order through the Embassy’s Facilities Maintenance Unit for rooster removal.  As my request worked its way through the system, I told some of my Uzbek colleagues about the situation.  They all got a laugh about it, and every single one of them told me it was my right to eat Frank.

My friend Shabada especially enjoyed the part about feeding him Cheerios.

“Such luxury!” she mocked.  “He’s eating better than at his own home, and he definitely won’t want to leave!”

I guess she had a point, but I wasn’t exactly running a rooster Club Med.

When I got home that evening, Frank was gone, and the standard form from Facilities was on my kitchen table showing that someone from the unit had entered my house.  In the comments section of the form it read, “Done finded the owner.”

We don’t have an animal-control specialist on staff, so one of our other specialists – an electrician, a plumber, or perhaps a gardener – had remedied the situation.

My other colleagues were sure that whoever accepted this job from Facilities would just eat Frank, as I had been encouraged to do by so many people.  The next morning, however, I got proof of life.  My former roommate was merrily crowing from his usual location, muffled somewhat by the street or two buffer that was once again between us.

Uzbekistan: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 2)

While there are formal taxis and local taxi-hailing apps in Uzbekistan, every car is a potential taxi.  Some drivers use their cars as taxis full-time, and others only occasionally.  Basically, though, Uzbeks have been ubering long before Uber existed.

To hail an unofficial taxi, one needs only to stand on the side of the road, arm outstretched, and wait for a friendly motorist to stop, usually in a Matiz, Lacetti, Nexia, or Spark.  After a moment to discuss the destination and agree on a price, you’re on your way.

People of all stripes use unofficial taxis, from frail grannies to desk jockeys to little kids.  In the case of the kids, they get taxi money from their parents and make their ways independently across the city.

As I was riding in an Embassy car one day, I was talking to my driver about this.

“How old are kids when they start catching street taxis alone?” I asked.

“Well,” he replied, “I think eight or nine is normal, but some even start as early as seven.”

“As for me,” he continued, “I won’t let my kids ride alone until they are 20!”

No matter the country, no matter the norm, never count out an overprotective father.

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

It’s an Uzbek wedding tradition to gather on the morning of the big day to eat plov, the national dish.  No one is supposed to be turned away, so the numbers often swell as friends of friends start showing up.  In the case of a VIP wedding, you might end up with literally thousands of people eating the oily mixture of rice and meat.

Back in the days when everyone woke up at the crack of dawn to work in the fields, wedding plov was served at 4:30 or 5 AM to correspond with the work day.  Now that people (at least those living in cities) tend to start working later in the morning, the timing for wedding plov has also fallen back to around 7 AM.  This often means that a wedding hall will have cars spilling out into the street right during morning rush hour.

One day when I was on the way to work, my driver and I encountered an intersection that was thrown into complete chaos by a wedding-plov gathering.  On a three-lane road, cars were parked on two of the three driving lanes, leaving only one lane through which traffic could actually flow.  Actually, flow isn’t the right word; it was more of a trickle.

I was the one on track to be late for work, but it was my driver who was fuming as we crept up the street.

“Me eat plov!” he shouted as we passed the wedding hall.  “Me park in road!  Me big man!”

I don’t like a traffic jam any more than the next guy, but this cave-man rant somehow made it worth it.

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

Thanks to the language barrier here, I often miss the nuances of daily life, including at the supermarket.

The procedure at the check-out counter is pretty familiar and routine, and thankfully it doesn’t require much communication.  I put my items on the belt, and the cashier scans them.  Then I flash my bonus card and pay.  At the end of the transaction, however, there is often one final step before the old “spasiba/dasvidaniya” exchange: The cashier hands me a few pieces of candy.

For weeks, I thought this was a freebie treat like getting a lollipop from a bank teller.  Then one day, my cashier was less smooth than most.  I noticed she was counting out a specific number of candies, and then it dawned on me:  Part of my change was being paid in candy.

The candy component was equivalent to only a few cents, but still I found myself singing a modified version of P!nk’s “U + Ur Hand” in my head.

“Keep your candy; just give me the money!” I sang, and when I realized what I was doing, I had to laugh.

Sometimes, you just have to say it.  "Good one, brain!"

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.

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: 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: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 8)

At one of our weekly staff meetings, one of my Afghan colleagues had recently returned to work after an absence of probably ten days.  His father had broken his hip, and my colleague, the son, had taken time off to help him get treatment.

There was considerable interest in the incident among the rest of the staff, so he told us what had happened.

"It was really terrible," he began.  "My father fell in the middle of the night, and he was in so much pain."

"I took him to the hospital by taxi, but actually, it was no use."

"Why not?" we asked.

"Unfortunately," he explained, "there was no one there who could help."

"We waited for hours, and still no one helped us.  My father was really suffering."

"So," we prompted, "what happened?"

"In these situations," he told us, "there is only one thing you can do: Go to Pakistan."

They loaded up his father in an ambulance and began driving to Peshawar by way of Jalalabad.  This is a journey of five hours under the best conditions, but for his father who was jostling around in the back with an untreated broken hip, it must have been hell.

"Did you have visas?" my boss asked.

"Actually, it wasn't necessary," he replied.  "If you are in an ambulance you can cross the border without the visa."

All the Americans in the meeting found this system to be most curious.

"Once we got inside Pakistan," he continued, "a surgeon finally helped my father, thanks God."

After the injury was stabilized and his father was comfortable, they waited several days more in Pakistan for him to regain his strength.  Then they began the drive back to Kabul.

"By the time we left Pakistan," he told us, "my father was feeling pretty good."  "Actually, we could have easily returned by taxi."

"And did you?" we asked.

"Of course not," he replied.  "We still didn't have visas, so we hired an ambulance for the ride back."

Even the Afghans in the room saw the humor in this, and everyone cracked up.  It would seem there was a loophole in Afghanistan-Pakistan border security that you could literally drive a truck through.

Apparently, however, this situation was also on the radars of Afghan and Pakistani officials, and a few months after the great hip caper, the ambulance border exception was closed --- at least officially.

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

At Embassy Kabul, the American employees (who are typically on one-year assignments) get a reduced shipment of household effects.  Even with this reduced shipment, however, I still managed to bring more than enough cargo to fill my apartment.

That said, I still ended up leaving a few key items behind, and one day, I found myself in need of a Phillips head screwdriver.  A few of my dining room chairs had legs that were so loose, I knew it was only a matter of time before one collapsed and someone (quite possibly me) busted his butt.

Rather than hunt around for a screwdriver, I put in a maintenance work order, explaining the problem.  I also noted on the form that I was happy to handle it myself if it was possible to borrow a screwdriver.

A few hours later, the Embassy's carpenter called me about the work order, and we arranged to meet at my apartment that afternoon.

We meet at the appointed time, and he got to work.  A couple turns of the screwdriver on the four legs of four chairs, and everything was done.  The whole job had taken about two minutes.

"Is that it?" he asked me, with a slight tone in his voice.

But for some reason, all I heard was, "Please turn in your Man Card."

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

For the Afghan staff at the Embassy, the job is a mixed bag.  Most seem to enjoy the work; the pay and benefits are very competitive; and after two years of service, they can apply for an immigrant visa to the U.S.  On the other hand, it can be dangerous to be affiliated with the Americans, and some of our Afghan colleagues have been targeted in the past.

As such, most Afghan employees try to keep a low profile.  Many have developed cover stories they tell their friends and neighbors, and in some cases, they don't even tell their spouses and immediate family members they are working at the Embassy.  Besides the security angle, it doesn't always pay to spread the news about working at the Embassy because one might end up surrounded by a mob of those less fortunate, hands firmly extended for a piece of the pie.

Part of keeping a low profile is blending in while commuting to and from work.  Employees who wear logo-ed uniforms would naturally want to wear different clothes while on the bus, but even those who generally wear business suits might want to wear other clothes while out in town.  It all depends on the alias a person has assumed.

I've seen several of the Afghan employees coming to work in their traditional clothing, the shalwar kameez, before changing to their work clothes, but one morning, I saw one of my colleagues in a different get-up altogether.

While normally looking smart in a suit and tie, he was coming through the gate with pegged jeans, a varsity jacket, and a baseball cap turned backwards.  His age and beard made the ensemble all the more conspicuous.

When he saw me, he sheepishly grinned, and I was somewhat perplexed.

"What kind of blending was this?" I wondered.  "Did his family think he worked in a 90's boy band?"

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 7)

When the invitation for a high-level Embassy birthday party appeared in my inbox, I assumed the guest list must have been fairly inclusive.  I checked with Eitan to see if he had been invited as well, and once I had confirmation, we formally accepted.  We received our invitations probably three weeks before the big day, as did several other people, but the list wasn't as inclusive as I had expected.

A handful of people was invited on the first round, and word quickly spread around the Embassy.  Although everyone tried to play it cool, some people were cleared miffed at being overlooked.

As time passed, more invitations trickled out.  The staggered approach, however, didn't go unnoticed by any means.

I overhead several variations of this conversation around campus:

"I got my invitation today," a colleague would remark.

"Oh," came the reply, "I got mine a week ago."

While pleased to have made the cut, people were keenly aware if they had been relegated to second-, third-, or fourth-string.  Those who fared better were good about reminding the later picks.

The hurt feelings continued to grow as the party date drew closer.  Some only received invitations the day before, in which case, it's hard not to feel like an after-thought.

When all was said and done, most of the American community had gotten tapped, but not all.  In my office, eight out of nine of us made the cut, leaving one officer out in the cold.

"Come along anyway," we encouraged him.  "Your invitation probably got misdirected."

Compelled by pride and uncertainty, however, he was unwilling to try his luck (for what if he showed up and his exclusion had been intentional?).

"I'm pretty tired," he told us, "and I was planning to watch some Netflix tonight."

The party was fun in the end, but the invitation delivery scheme caused some major drama.  No one likes to be picked last for kickball, not even seasoned diplomats with decades of experience.

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

While I don't have that many contacts of my own, as the admin assistant in my office, I know a lot of the guests who come to meet with my colleagues.

One afternoon, I went to retrieve one of our frequent visitors at the guard booth.

A gray-haired older man, he was sitting outside the security screening zone waiting for me.

As I normally do, I approached him for the customary handshake.

He stood up, slightly fumbling with his things, and extended his hand toward mine.  Something was amiss, however.  There was something else in that shake besides our ten fingers.

While I could tell that my visitor was palming something, I didn't take the mysterious object from him.

As I disengaged from the handshake, a pendant - a small lapis heart - fell to the ground.

"I got that for you," he sheepishly told me.  "I know you can't get out of the compound, and we have things like this in town."

Although we do in fact have access to such trinkets in the shops on the compound, I thanked the man for the gift and led him to his meeting.

Twenty minutes later, I was telling the tale to my colleagues.

"That's creepy, man," one of the guys told me.  "He was totally hitting on you."

I wasn't convinced this was the case, however, as it seemed more like something out of the grandfather's playbook.  Maybe next time he'll pull a quarter out of my ear.

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

When I first arrived to Kabul, there were pallets of bottled water everywhere on the Embassy compound, and people were clearly accustomed to it.  Six months later, however, the bottled water began to dry up.  The powers-that-be decided it was too expensive to continue stocking bottled water for general use when the tap water was deemed to be perfectly potable.  The shipments of bottled water were slashed dramatically and were now reserved primarily for emergency stocks.

To socialize the change, the Embassy's management section as well as the Green Team sent out e-mails and posted flyers about the awesomeness of drinking tap water.  Not only was it cheap, healthy, and better for the environment, it also tasted delicious.  Most people grumbled a bit at first, as people are wont to do, but soon enough, everyone who was anyone was drinking from the tap.

There were a few hold-outs, however, who were unwilling to drink the Kool-Aid (or in this case, the water).

One of my colleagues was convinced that the well water wasn't as healthy as had been claimed, so he ordered a water-testing kit from the EPA.

When the kit arrived, he began testing the water with wild abandon, and he'd kindly give us daily reports on his findings.

"This morning the tap is showing 480; the water fountain, 349; the water kettle, 434; and the Brita pitcher, 240," he'd announce.

When the concept was still novel, people would feign interest.

"Four-eighty what?" a colleague might ask.

"Parts per million!" he'd reply.

"Parts per million of what?" the colleague would continue.

And at that point, the conversation would die.  My water-testing colleague only knew that the tap water contained 480 parts per million of something, but with no further granularity, such testing was useless.

The daily reports never did stop, but they soon began to fall like trees in a forest with nobody there to listen.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 6)

I like some pungent foods, and my colleague, Archibald, was happy to indulge my stinky tooth.  Or perhaps he was trying to challenge me.

In any case, when he returned from his first vacation, he came bearing a jar of Cambodian fish paste.  To help ensure there was no accidental leakage on the plane, it was wrapped up tightly in about 15 plastic bags secured with rubber bands, in addition to the plastic jar itself.  When I finally peeled open all the layers and revealed the paste inside, it didn't look like a paste at all.  It was a chunky mess of fermented fish parts, and while it wasn't totally revolting, if it had been drawn as a cartoon, it would definitely merit some stink lines.  When I added it to recipes, however, it did contribute a nice flavor.

A few months later, Archibald returned from another vacation, and this time he brought me another treat - durian candy from Thailand.  Durian fruit is said to taste like heaven and smell like hell, and it's pretty polarizing.  People either love it or hate it, and there's not much middle ground.  I like durian, so the candy was well-received.

Archibald had given me the candy in the office, so I ate a few pieces, sealed the bag with a binder clip, and put it in my desk.  Everyday I would eat a few more pieces, and curiously, the smell seemed to intensify each time.  One afternoon, I cracked open the bag, and the smell wafted around the office.  Archibald could see what I was doing, so he knew what was happening.  The rest were clueless.

"What's that smell?" my other colleagues pondered.

The next day, the smell was more aggressive still.

I cracked open the bag around 2 PM, and outside the door, some workmen caught a whiff.

"Do you smell that?" one asked the other.  "I think there's a gas leak!"

I can't be sure they were smelling the durian, but it wouldn't be a stretch.  I closed it up.

A day later, I pulled out my stash of durian once again.  It was smelling roughly 22% riper than the day before.

Archibald was there as I opened it, along with my colleagues Jeb and Phoenix.

Phoenix and Archibald were laughing about the slightly obnoxious stench, and then something unexpected happened: Jeb ran out of the office dry heaving.

"What was that about?" Phoenix asked.

Opinions were mixed as to whether Jeb was being a drama queen or if the durian smell was truly making him gag.

In any case, I knew the gig was up.  You can't keep doing something in the office that might make your colleagues puke, so I took my toxic candy home and ate the rest in peace.

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

Language can be difficult, and sometimes, well-meaning expressions can go awry - and comically so.

As I was sitting in my office one morning, someone sneezed in the hallway.

In nearly every language there is a response to a sneeze, and one of our Afghan janitors gave it a try in English:

"Blast you!" he proudly shouted.

An American colleague was in the hall, and he quickly intervened.

"You shouldn't say that," he corrected.  "I think you mean, 'bless you!'"

We've all had some foreign language slips, and it was a good learning opportunity for the janitor.  But mostly, it gave us a good laugh to start the day.

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

Here at the Embassy, there is an office charged with keeping morale on the compound high, and this office has money.  It organizes events for nearly every holiday.  It hosts movie nights and market days.  And best of all, it will support events conceived by members of the community.  For example, if you want to host a Black History Month party for the community and you need some cash, you can submit a proposal.  If you want to conduct a bedazzling workshop and you need some money for supplies, you can submit a proposal.  I'm not sure of the exact criteria, but I think that most events that are fully inclusive and well organized get serious consideration.

There are a wide variety of events that are hosted or sponsored by this office, but the best by far, in my humble opinion, was my friend Antoinette's cocktail class.  This class was open to the community, but due to logistical constraints, participation was limited to like twenty or thirty people.

Eitan and I made the cut, and we reported for duty, ready to channel our inner bartenders.

Antoinette had arranged the training room with high-top cafe tables, with four people at each table.

The ingredients were all prepped beforehand with enough to make four cocktails on each table.  So, for example, there might be a small dish with 4 or 5 tablespoons of lemon juice if the recipe for a single cocktail called for 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.

Once the crowd assembled, there were a few youngsters on the front row.

"Do we get to drink the cocktails?" one asked.

"Of course!" Antoinette replied.

These two guys were some of our Marine Security Guards, which means they could have been as young as 18 years old.  No one was carding at the cocktail class, though.  Besides that, the old saying certainly holds water, at least for me, that someone willing to die for his country should be allowed to have a drink of alcohol.

By the way the guys smiled and blushed when they learned they could drink, however, I suspect they probably were underage.

Antoinette formally welcomed the Marines and the rest of her eager pupils, and then class was in session.

Our first cocktail of the evening was the Mary Pickford - a delightful combination of white rum, fresh pineapple juice, grenadine, and Maraschino liqueur.  We were each provided with a cleaned-out iced-tea jar from the cafeteria to use as a shaker, and we loaded up our ingredients.  As we did, Antoinette gave us tips on our technique, information on the ingredients, and some history about the cocktail itself.  The Mary Pickford, for example, was named after the Canadian-American film star in the 1920s.

Once we had our ingredients loaded up, Antoinette gave us the order to shake.  She had emphasized the need to shake our cocktails sufficiently and vigorously, and to make sure no one was cutting corners, she timed us.  One minute doesn't sound like much, but sixty seconds of forceful shaking can start to feel like a workout.

After the shaking came our reward.  We poured our drinks into our glasses and tasted our handiwork.

Everyone at my table was pleased.  Well, nearly everyone was.

"It's OK," my friend Harriett said, "but I really don't like Maraschino juice."

We took 15 or 20 minutes to savor our Mary Pickfords, cleaned up our stations, and prepped for the next cocktail: The Bee's Knees.

For the Bee's Knees, we combined gin, lemon, and honey in our shakers, waited for Antoinette's signal, and got our arms pumping.

Then we filled our glasses again and raised a toast.  Once again, only 75% of our table was satisfied.

"I just don't care for honey," Harriett announced.

This was a bit ironic because honey was a crucial part of the cocktail.  During the Prohibition era, honey and citrus were liberally added to mask the bad taste of "bathtub gin".

Half an hour later, we moved on to our final cocktail, the classic Whisky Sour.

The recipe for this one included bourbon, lemon juice, sugar, and fresh egg white.  As we were prepping, the first guy at our table, Jefferson, poured nearly the whole bowl of egg whites into his shaker, far exceeding the recommended dose.  Consequently, the rest of us barely got any.

We carried on as best we could and joined the one-minute chorus of shaking.

When we finished, Jefferson's cocktail looked like a milkshake it was so frothy.  The rest of us had considerably less head on our Whisky Sours.

We toasted and had a sip, and the three of us turned to Harriett to see what her reaction might be this time.

Harriett knew that all eyes were on her, and she didn't disappoint.

"Bourbon isn't my thing," she told us.  "I wish we had made a Gin Fizz instead."

We all had a laugh about it.  Harriett was three for three.

With the formal part of the class completed, we all got the opportunity to make a final cocktail.  Antoinette unveiled a variety of bitters with flavors ranging from chocolate to crawfish boil.  We students were invited to remake any of the drinks we especially liked, to try the cocktails with different bitters added, or to go free-style.

At this point, we mingled with the rest of the students in the class, thanked Antoinette for her initiative, and sipped away on our cocktails.  And for the first time that evening, Harriett found something to her liking.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 5)

In Afghanistan (and probably in other "hot spots" around the world) there is a so-called fighting season.  The Afghanistan fighting season is basically year round, save for the heart of winter.  Terrorists and insurgents are people too, and I suppose nobody wants to trudge through snow to shot someone or place a bomb.  Besides the discomfort involved, there are also less targets available in winter since people tend to hunker down more in bad weather.

This issue came up while we were in a staff meeting one day.  It was December -- at a time when fighting season would normally be over.  This year, winter in Kabul was very mild, with only a dusting of snow on a few different days.  There wasn't much rain either, nor was it especially cold.  In short, fighting season never ended, and December was a particularly bloody month.

"We sure are hoping for some snow soon," one of my Afghan colleagues remarked.

"It must look nice," an American colleague innocently replied.

"To be honest," the Afghan replied, "I only like the snow for the security."

"Look at what's happening in Kabul these days because there's no snow."

I think it's a pretty fascinating example of the interconnectedness of our world.  At least in part because of global warming or El Niño or whatever else caused this year's warm winter, there was an increase in conflict deaths in Kabul.

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

With dinner having concluded one night, some friends and I were sitting around the table talking.  As the night wore on, the topics of conversation danced freely between the serious, the silly, and the mundane.  At one point, we started talking about fitness.

Early on, one friend made an observation.

"Seriously," he told us, "I see so many people in the gym who are just wasting their time."

This prompted a few anecdotes from some of the others about half-assed workouts they had observed.

My friend who had opened this avenue of discussion then went on to outline his vigorous fitness regime and the results he had achieved.

"I've lost 20 pounds in five months," he offered.

There are many fitness high achievers here in Kabul for a few reasons.  People have time on their hands for starters, and there are also less distractions.  For example, most people with family obligations can't afford to workout two hours a day.  In a place like Kabul, however, where you come without your family, that's not a problem.

In contrast to the high achievers, you naturally have some lower achievers as well - the people who use the 3-pound pink weights, the people who walk on the treadmill, the people who barely break a sweat - and these were the ones being mocked.  This didn't sit well with me.  Not everyone goes to the gym to get a six pack or to drop a dress size or to train for a triathlon.  My own motivation for going to the gym is to keep my current wardrobe in play and to keep some of my medical metrics in check.  My workout is pretty low intensity, and, reminiscent of my friend's comment, I was indeed once told that my workout was a joke.

No personal offense had been intended by the conversation, but offense was taken nonetheless.

I should have ignored it and moved on, but instead I took the low road.

"Twenty pounds in five months isn't that amazing," I responded.

My comment was snarky, bitter, and not even true (for losing 20 pounds in five months is actually pretty impressive), and it didn't go unnoticed.

"It's better than you could do!" my friend retorted, his gaze dripping with venom.

An awkwardness now loomed over the table, and the party dissolved soon thereafter.

Instead of taking a stand for the less-driven, overweight, and stiff-jointed, I had made an ass of myself.

Check, please.

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

There are numerous stray cats on the Embassy compound, and there is a team of employees who offer their time and treasure to feed and look after them.  The team names the cats as well with colorful monikers like Bossypants, Sweetums, and Gordo.

While they are indeed feral, many of the cats have become habituated to humans, and a few are actually somewhat charming.

One evening, Eitan and I walked out of our apartment building to find a cat loudly meowing in the flowerbed.  Maybe it was Winston or perhaps Hank; I have no idea who is who.

I meowed back, and the cat ran over to us like a puppy dog.

We continued walking and I would occasionally meow to the cat.  He followed us over half the compound, walking a respectful pace behind.  He didn't try any of that weaving between the legs nonsense.  He just followed us.

I thought his response was pretty impressive, but Eitan wasn't of the same mind.

"Stop encouraging him," he chided.

The novelty was wearing off in any case, so I complied with Eitan's request and stopped "encouraging" the cat.  This was a smart cat to be sure, though, and as soon as I stopped playing with him, he disappeared.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 4)

With Halloween coming up, I was a bit behind the curve getting my costumes arranged.  A sucker for the classics, though, I decided to go with my usuals - vampire and werewolf - for the two nights of parties I had lined up.

In the case of the werewolf, I needed to find some hair to use.  I had missed my chance to order fake fur online or to get a clump of wool from the vendors at the bazaar, but there was one other option that came to mind.  There is a store on the compound that makes and sells fur coats, and I popped in to see if they had anything I could use.

"Do you have a scrap of fur I could buy?" I asked the man.  "I need to cut it up and glue it on my face."

"I think so," the man answered quizzically.

He walked behind the counter and produced a scrap of mink, about the size of a mouse pad.

"What about this one?" he asked.

Unfortunately, the hair was quite short, and I needed something with longer pile.

I raked my hand across the fluffier coats in the shop - beaver, rabbit, and (ugh!) raccoon.

"Anything like these?" I asked.  "It's needs to be a bit long so I can cut it."

The man was still looking puzzled.

"I'm trying to be a wolf-man for Halloween," I continued.

"Oh," the man said with a twinkle in his eye.  "Maybe this will work!"

He pulled out a whole silver fox tail.  It was roughly 18 inches long (46 cm), and it was beautiful.

"Perfect!" I responded.  "How much?"

"It's on the house," he told me, "for a good cause."

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I thanked the man and left.  As promised, I did indeed cut up the tail, and my costume was well received at the party.

The next morning, I returned to the fur shop, bearing a small token of appreciation.

"Here's a picture from last night," I told him.  "Thanks again for your help."

The man's mouth widened into a Cheshire cat grin.

"I'm gonna put this on my wall!" he told me.

The photo might have since come down, but I guess my werewolf self got its 15 minutes of fame.

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

Needing to make a fat stack of color copies on short notice and having no suitable equipment for the job in my office, I ventured to a neighboring building on the compound.  I went to the customer support unit, where there was indeed a color copier.  As luck would have it, though, the CSU was transitioning to another space that day, and the copier was unplugged, ready to be moved.

"Can I use this?" I asked one of the guys.

He walked over and had a look.

"We'll need an adapter to make it work," he told me.

I walked away to look for other options, but I was still within earshot as the man rummaged through his desk drawer for an adapter.

A moment later, I heard something peculiar.

"Sir, there's a problem!" he exclaimed.

I walked around the corner, and indeed there was a problem.  Thick curls of gray smoke were flowing from the bottom of the machine.

The sheepish look on the man's face as he experienced his oh-shit moment was priceless.

I broke out laughing, which caused him to break out laughing.

He had unplugged the copier by now, but another colleague came around the corner to see what all the commotion was about.

"Did you just plug the 110 copier into the 220 outlet?" he asked.

I blame it on the fumes, for now there were three of us cracking up.  A good laugh is contagious, you know.

With smoke continuing to billow from the machine, a secondary problem came to mind.

"We need to dissipate this smoke in a hurry," I observed, "or the sprinklers are gonna kick on and flood the place."

The three of us grabbed some papers and started fanning, and still none of us could keep a straight face.  Then, after a minute of determined flapping, the coast was clear.  Only the entire area now smelled like burnt popcorn.

For anyone concerned about the damage to U.S. government property, there are two things to keep in mind:  One, it was an honest mistake.  And, two, the copier seemed OK in the end.  We restarted it, this time using a transformer, and it fired up.  It turned out that the toner unit had burned out, though, so we replaced that, and I finally finished making my copies.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 3)

The Embassy in Kabul is a high priority for the U.S. Government, and many senior diplomats have answered the call to serve here.  In fact, there are multiple ambassadors on the roster.

The compound where we live and work is not a huge place, and I frequently run across the senior leadership.  I see them at work, of course, but I also see them in the cafeteria, in the gym, at the library, randomly on the grounds, at the store, and so forth.

The strangest experience for me, however, was in the laundry mat.  I had a load of wash running and when I came back to move it to the dryer, one of the ambassadors was using the next machine over.  On the awkwardness scale, this seemed about one step better than if the two of us had been using adjacent urinals.  Standing with your underwear in your hand in front of the top brass can have that effect on some people, I suppose.

The encounter was a good reminder, though, that even ambassadors put their pants on one leg at a time.

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

After a full day of work, I came home and put some Marvin Gaye on the stereo as one does.  Not 20 seconds into "What's Going On?", there was an explosion outside.  My living-room windows were shaking, and for a moment I just stood in place.  The blast sounded close.

"Was the compound hit?" I wondered.

I knew the Marines would be making an announcement soon, and indeed, after a slight delay, the alarms were activated.

"Duck and cover!  Duck and cover!  This is not a drill!  Secure classified information, and seek hardened cover!"

I was already in a reinforced building, so other than getting away from the windows, I didn't need to take any further action.

The sirens and announcements continued for several minutes; Marvin kept it soulful in the background.

"Everyone remain under cover!" the Marine barked.  "RSO [the regional security office] is investigating the blast."

Within minutes, even as the Marine was still talking, details of the explosion appeared on my blackberry.  A suicide bomber had detonated himself 1.4 kilometers (0.9 miles) from the Embassy.  Twelve lives, including three American, were taken, and nearly 70 people were injured.

After maybe 10 minutes, the all-clear was sounded, and we were instructed to resume normal activity.

To be honest, while it had been startling, I wasn't really shaken by the event.  I was safe in my cocoon.

While I didn't think he was in danger necessarily, I tried to reach Eitan just for peace of mind.

I wouldn't hear back from him for two hours, and he was perfectly fine when we spoke.  From where he was standing when the bomb went off, he was better insulated and it didn't sound very intense to him.  As such, he didn't feel any urgency to call me, and he finished what he was working on before he did.

The explosion itself hadn't jarred me, but the two hours that followed seemed like an eternity.  And this might be the only downside to coming here on assignment with someone else.  Once you realize you yourself haven't been killed or maimed, you still have another person to worry about.

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

Since my office was running low on paper, I placed an order to get some more.  I logged onto the Embassy's supply catalog and ordered five reams of 8 1/2 x 11 inch white paper - the standard for American offices.  I ordered the magic number of five because that is generally the number of reams in a case.  A few days later, my paper arrived, and it wasn't in a case.  It was five loose reams in a plastic bag.  Not only was the paper not in a case, but each of the reams was a different brand.  Most sizable embassies order copy paper in bulk, probably by the pallet, so I was curious how we came to have a hodgepodge like this.  Besides not matching, the wrapping on each ream was also torn and soiled, leaving me to wonder if perhaps my paper had been wrestled from the Taliban.  While I never did solve the mystery, I found the whole episode fascinating.

Yes, my name is Chris, and I'm a nerd.

Kabul: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 2)

As part of my job, I escort visitors to meetings on the Embassy compound.

One day, I picked up two chaps from the British Embassy, and after we finished the security checks, I led them toward the conference room in which they would be meeting.

"Have you been here before?" I asked.

"Yes, last year," the younger of the two replied.

"Then I think you must have been in the older building," I told him.  "This annex has only been open a few weeks."

"Yes, you must be right," he answered.

"I just remember a very grand atrium," he continued, "and the most amazing assortment of tea and sweets in the political section."

In my experience, a big candy selection is nothing unusual for an American office.  It's not everyday, however, that a Brit is so impressed with the tea assortment that he's still talking about it a year later.

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

This year, Afghanistan Independence Day, August 19, fell on a Wednesday.

We were sitting in our staff meeting a few days beforehand, half of us American and half Afghan, and the topic of the holiday came up.

The normal workweek at the Embassy is Sunday through Thursday, which gave my boss a thought.

"Are any of you taking off Thursday?" she asked the Afghans.

Staring around at each other, they were clearly confused by the question.

"No, we'll be here," the unofficial leader of the group replied.  "Why do you ask?"

"Well," she answered, "in America, if there is a holiday followed by a workday and then the weekend, people like to take the workday off to have a longer weekend."

She was met by more blank stares.

"That gives you four days off," she continued, "and you only have to use one day of annual leave."

Crickets chirped and tumbleweeds rolled by, and finally one of the Afghans spoke.

"For the weekend, two days is enough," he replied.

To have such little regard for a long weekend was astounding.  Now the Americans were left staring awkwardly around the room.

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

Everyone at the Embassy in Kabul must have a job, so many people are forced to leave their spouses and partners behind if they can't get something lined up (or if they aren't interested).  Obviously kids can't come either.  As I've also mentioned a few times, the living quarters here are a lot less comfortable than at most overseas posts.  Many people are living in modified shipping containers.  These two factors - being alone and living in a steel box - account for a lot of grumbling.

I was out at the Duck & Cover one night, and this came up in conversation.

"I feel like people are always trying to give me a guilt trip," I remarked, "because I'm not here alone and because I don't live in a hooch."

I was talking to a colleague with several years of State Department experience under her belt, and she burst out laughing.

"I'm here without my family, and I live in a hooch," she exclaimed, "and I'm having the time of my life!"

As they say about any experience, it's all what you make it.

Kabul: Sanitized Chicken

Through the Embassy's "concierge service" it is possible to order fruits, vegetables, meats, and other grocery items for delivery to the Embassy.  Since most employees are not allowed to leave the compound, except periodically for official meetings, this service can be a life saver.

As I was looking over the order form for meat one day, something caught my eye: A product called "sanitized chicken" was available.

I like my chicken juicy... and sanitized.

Naturally, I thought this was curious, and after I posted a picture of the meat list on facebook, it was clear that others were equally interested to know more of this sanitized chicken.

I asked the woman at the concierge desk about it.

"I don't know what it is," she told me.  "It's an American thing."

Being an American myself, I didn't find her explanation to be very helpful.

I kept the chicken question in my mind, however, and whenever I'd pass the desk, I'd glance to see who was on duty.  There was no point in asking the woman again.

A few days after my initial approach, a man was working the counter.

"Can you tell me what sanitized chicken is?" I asked.

"It's your choice, sir," he replied.  "You can have wings, legs..."

"I'm not asking about the cut," I interrupted.  "What makes it sanitized?"

"I don't know," he replied.  "It's an American thing."

Seriously, people?  I was starting to think maybe I'd been overseas too long because I had no clue about this new American craze of sanitized chicken.

Having struck out twice, I noticed a different guy working the concierge desk a few days later.  I was hoping the third time was the charm.

"About this sanitized chicken," I started.  "We don't have that in America. What is it?"

Wisely not wanting to get involved, the clerk passed the buck.

"I think it's best if you talk to my supervisor," he told me.

I was game, so he dialed his boss and handed me the phone.

Still not expecting any resolution, I repeated the same old question yet again: "What is sanitized chicken?"

The man didn't miss a beat.

"It comes from Sri Lanka," he explained. "It's cleaned, cut, frozen, and plastic-wrapped."

In short, sanitized chicken is frozen Sri Lankan supermarket chicken.

Now why didn't I think of that.

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

Life on the Embassy compound can be, well, strange.  You are able to live relatively comfortably, but you aren't permitted to venture outside the walls.  Depending on the mood, people sometimes liken it to a college campus, sometimes to a prison.  I've also heard it described as summer camp and as a retirement home, and all of these comparisons somehow work.  Against the fishbowl experience at the Embassy, there is obviously a striking contrast to the rest of the country, a substantial portion of which is an active conflict zone.

It can be easy to lose perspective while living in this bubble, and I got to witness this first-hand one afternoon when one of my colleagues returned to the office slightly miffed.

"Terrible news," he announced.  "The commissary is out of pâté!"

While he seemed genuinely irritated at first, his scowl soon softened into a smirk.  I guess he realized the ridiculousness of the situation.

We all got a laugh over it, but Lord help us if the cocktail onions run out.

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

Often times, it's the little touches that make the difference.  On my way to the HR annex, one day, I was following one of my Afghan colleagues.  Before he entered the building, he unhooked an air hose from the wall and proceeded to spray the dust off his clothes and shoes.  Kabul in the summertime can be a dusty place, so the air-hose treatment could come in handy for knocking off some grime before a meeting.  Not to mention, the more dust that stays outside the building, the easier everyone inside can breathe.

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

August 10 was pretty similar to most Mondays here, and with a meeting having just finished, a few people were sitting near my desk chatting.  I wasn't part of the conversation, but I inserted myself.

"Does no one else feel the floor moving?" I asked.

Apparently, no one else did because all I got were some long stares.

"Sometimes the construction outside causes a vibration," someone offered.

For what seemed like a good 10 seconds or so, I felt like I was standing on a massage plate.  Since I was the only one who noticed, I began to wonder if I was imagining things.

I was in fact not going crazy, and soon the office began to shake in its entirety.

No one likes an earthquake, I reckon, but I was happy to be vindicated.

Once it became obvious what was happening, people started scrambling.  The Embassy has contingency plans for all types of scenarios, including earthquakes, but they don't do much good if no one remembers them.

"Do we go outside?" someone asked.

"No, I think we get under the desk," someone else replied.

"Maybe we should go to the hallway!" a third person suggested.

The quake itself, which was centered a few hundred kilometers away near Feyzabad and clocked in with a magnitude between 5.7 and 6.2, only managed to rattle the office for a few seconds.  This was convenient since collectively we were clueless on the emergency procedures.

Once the danger had passed, people went back to chatting almost immediately, but now with a fresh topic: If "The Big One" came, would our first-floor location be our salvation or our doom?

Kabul: First Impressions

Despite my forced overnight layover in Dubai, I was tired by the time I got to the airport to catch my flight to Kabul.  My hotel had been nice enough, but I just couldn’t get comfortable.

Eitan would be following me to Kabul in three days, so for the time being, I was on my own.

As I sat at the gate waiting for the boarding announcement for my flight, I had picked a terrible spot indeed.  There were three ladies sitting in my vicinity, and not five minutes after I had joined them, all of their toddlers erupted.  Clearly it was nap time as each of these tykes tried to out-scream the others.  The girl in the cow-spotted dress was winning by a nose.

In hindsight, I should have relocated, but I kept telling myself that this ruckus couldn’t persist indefinitely.  I stand corrected.  Well played, kids.  Well played.

When boarding finally commenced, I squeezed on the bus with the heaving masses and we lumbered toward the plane.  The bus stopped planeside after a few minutes, and the crush of people gradually shifted toward the doors.  Twenty minutes later, we were still held captive, and the A/C on the bus had long since expired.  The humane thing to do would have been to leave us in the terminal until the plane was fully prepped, but what’s the fun in that?

When we were finally released, everyone staggered into the breeze, blinking at the midday sun.  Free at last!

As I found my place on the plane, I got a bit of good news.  I had an aisle seat, and the middle seat to my left was empty.  What luck!

I was out like a light before the safety briefing even started, and I dozed through take-off.

I was fully prepared to sleep for the entire three-hour journey, but I ended up waking after 30 minutes.  This was mostly due to hypothermia.

You could practically see your breath on this plane, and no one seemed to be enjoying it very much.  Ladies were pulling their head scarves close, and some of the gents who were wearing keffiyehs, turbans, and other specialized headdresses unwound them and used them as wraps – either for themselves or for their seatmates.  Everyone was fiddling with the air nozzles in the ceiling, but it was for naught.  The Arctic air was flowing from the main vents, and there was seemingly no stopping it.

“Can I have a blanket?” I asked a flight attendant.

“Sorry, bro,” he responded.  “We don’t have any.”

His informality was refreshing, I suppose, but a blanket would have been nice.  This was yet another selling point for flying on a budget airline.

This steward, by the way, looked more like a bartender than a flight attendant.

As we neared Kabul, the pilot gave us a warning.  Kabul city is ringed by mountains, and when there is any significant wind, it tends to bounce around the basin and give planes a good shaking.  This is precisely what transpired.

Everyone strapped in, and we prepared for final descent.  Then we circled the city for half an hour waiting for a chance to land.

From elevation, Kabul looked as scenic and manicured as any city, the mountains majestic and the communities orderly.  I lamented that I would never get to see either up close.

When the pilot eventually found his sweet spot, we rattled our way down to a perfect landing.

Once we reached the gate, I was struck by something: This was the first flight I could recall where everyone waited for the seatbelt sign to fade before leaping out of their seats.

After a short bus ride, we reached the terminal, complete with all the typical arrival formalities.

Passport control and customs were a breeze, and my bags arrived no worse for the wear.

I caught a chopper over to the Embassy, and a few hours after my plane had landed, I got my first glimpse of the compound.

My sponsor met me at the main gate and showed me to my apartment.

As we walked, she explained things about the Embassy.  The way the compound is laid out, there is a logical east-west divide.  Owing to this virtue, my sponsor was going on and on about east-this and west-that.

"All this talk reminds me of New York," I told her.  "You've got your East Side and your West Side."

"Is there an Upper East Side?" I asked.

"Ha!" she replied.  "It's more like the west side of the compound is Manhattan, and the east side is Jersey."

She was taking a bit of a risk to Jersey-bash in front of a stranger, but having no dog in the fight myself, I didn't mind.

Her jab at the east side wasn't isolated either.  Other colleagues have referred to it as "the ghetto" and other colorful names.  Similarly, I've been ribbed by some (who are jealous, of course) for landing a (relatively) posh apartment on the west side.

My first evening, I wasn't hungry, but I went to the dining hall just to have a look.

I've since eaten in the cafeteria every day, and I personally think it's pretty good - or as good as you might expect given the circumstances.  That said, trash-talking about the cafeteria seems to be a favorite pastime around here.

To me, eating at the cafeteria is about like eating at Golden Corral.  While people tend to get tired of it over time, the food is generally recognizable, varied, tasty, and tailored to the American palate.  It's not like a grade-school cafeteria with chili mac and mystery meat.

For lunches and dinners, there are usually 4 or 5 hot entrees and several hot sides.  Everyday, there is also a sandwich station, a salad bar, a grill station with burgers and the like, a dessert counter, and a beverage cooler with sodas, sports drinks, juices, and milk.  The juices and milk are in single-serve boxes, and I always feel like there should be some Capri Sun there as well.  Ha ha.

Breakfast is similar with hot entrees and sides, cereals, a fruit bar, an omelet station, and more.

There are also theme events at the cafeteria like, for example, Mongolian barbeque night, seafood night, and Taco Tuesday.

The beauty of the system is that you can tailor your diet as you like -- and people do.  You might see someone walking out of the cafeteria with a mountain of desserts that would make Augustus Gloop blush, followed by someone toting carrot shavings and non-fat yogurt.

For those in need of guidance, the cafeteria even provides useful signs to help customers distinguish between “high performance” and “low performance” foods.  In case you were wondering, macaroni salad is a low performer.

use with caution! :)

Sometimes in the cafeteria, there can be a language barrier.  Once I was ordering a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.  I could sense that the server was confused, and, sure enough, he handed me a bowl of chunky sausage gravy.  I decided this was a sign from above, though, and I had him toss a biscuit on top and scrapped the oatmeal completely.

On another occasion, there was an even bigger language problem going on at the dessert case.  Eitan had since arrived to Kabul, and he and I watched the shenanigans with much delight.

The first customer walked up.

“I’ll have a slice of PEE-can pie!” he shouted.  He seemed to be channeling Yosemite Sam.

The server went to work behind the counter and emerged with the order.  As he handed it over, Yosemite Sam bristled.

“This ain’t PEE-can pie,” he told him.  “This is pumpkin!”

The server was willing to make amends, but Yosemite took the pumpkin pie and left.

About three minutes later, customer number 2 entered the fray.

“What cookies do you have today?” he asked.

The server was fumbling around, so the customer decided to help him out.

“The round things on the bottom self,” he told him.

Eitan and I were cracking up.

The next guy was in need of ice cream.

“Two scoops of vanilla,” he said with a smile.  He also held up two fingers for good measure.

Making up in courtesy for what he lacked in efficiency, the server responded with a flourish.  “Yes, sir,” he replied, “right away!”

Then he went to work in the cooler and handed the ice cream to the man.

“I think this is praline,” he grumbled.

Strike one, strike two, strike three for the dessert guy.

As much as we were enjoying the show, Eitan and I had finished eating by now, and we headed for the door.

An apple pie dispute was brewing as we passed into the balmy night.

Ethiopia: On a Roll at the Bowlarama... or Not

I hadn’t been bowling in ages, so when I got the invitation for a friend’s bowling birthday party, it was a no-brainer.

It would take place at the only modern bowling alley in town, Bowlarama at Laphto Mall.  “Twelve fully automated bowling lanes in Addis Ababa,” the advertisements boasted, “with state of the art Brunswick bowling equipment.”

“This bodes well,” I thought.

In addition to Bowlarama, I had heard tell of a second bowling alley in town.  This one was decidedly not modern, supposedly still utilizing children in the back to manually reset the pins.  I never tried this one which was frowned upon by the diplomatic community for its inherent child-labor problems.

In any case, I met up with some friends, and we carpooled out to the Old Airport district on the day of the party.

The night would turn out to be a series of hiccups, and the first happened as soon as we arrived.  Our group turned up at the counter, and finger-pointing quickly ensued.  The organizers on our side claimed they had booked ahead, and the Bowlarama staff claimed they hadn’t.  It didn’t really matter who was to blame, though, for by now the lanes were mostly full.

Gutter ball number one.

Undeterred, we crowded about 25 people on two lanes.  I don’t like bowling with more than four or five people on a lane, as the pace is just too slow, and I tried to sit out.

“Come on! It’ll be fun!” my friends pressured, and I schlepped up to the shoe counter like a good sheep and checked out a pair.

All the lanes needed some urgent care, and the one on which I ended up was perhaps the worst of all.

For starters, the lights had long since gone out on the scoring computer.  Of our entire group, only one friend and I had any clue whatsoever about how to manually score a game – and to be honest, this friend was struggling quite a bit herself.  We split up so that each of us could manage one of our lanes.

Gutter ball number two.

The lane issues didn’t end there.  My lane was permanently missing pins 6 and 7 (third row, right, and back row, left).

Gutter ball number three.

When we started bowling our first round, these missing pins immediately started a debate.  My thought was that a gutter ball should be worth zero; a strike – eight pins, in this case – would be worth ten points, and any ball between a gutter and a strike would qualify for two extra points to account for the two missing pins.  Others objected to this, insisting that the two “free” points should only be awarded in the case of strikes.   This made no sense to me, however, and since I was the one holding the pencil, I won the debate.

I was last in the line-up, which meant I had about two years to wait before my first roll.  Putting my free time to good use, though, I moseyed over to the snack bar.  The menu was pretty impressive, but when I tried to order a drink, I got some sad news.

“Unfortunately,” the attendant explained, “we are out of alcohol.”

Desperate, I gestured toward the beer tap on the bar.

“Empty,” he told me.

Gutter ball number four.

I returned to my lane with a coke in hand, and soon thereafter, it was my turn.

I selected a ball, approached the lane, and started into my run-up.  And I nearly ended up with a face full of maple.

Not only was the lane not polished and slick, it was actually sticky.  Forget about working a glide on such a rough surface.

Gutter ball number five.

Even though it ended in failure, my lane approach didn’t go unnoticed.

“Nice job there, Tinkerbell!” my colleague shouted.  “That’s some fancy footwork!”

I didn’t have time for the peanut gallery, though; it was time to redeem myself!  For my second attempt, I stood like a statue at the end of the lane and swung the ball a few feet in front of me.  It landed dead center, traveling at a decent clip.  Then, about three-quarters of the way down, it hit a pothole and popped into the gutter.  Doh!  I earned a big fat goose egg for my first round.

Gutter ball number six.

My teammates weren’t doing much better than I was, and if a stranger had glanced at our score card, it would be reasonable to assume this was a 5-year-old’s birthday, and not a party for someone six times that age.  Even worse, we were all as sober as deacons.

About halfway through the never-ending game, the birthday portion of the evening kicked off.  We sang the song, cut the cake; and someone appeared with a few pizzas.  Then we were playing with greasy balls the rest of the night.  Bowling with dirty hands is a lapse of etiquette to be sure, but at this point, we had pretty much hit rock bottom anyway.

I eventually ended up with a miserable 88 in what was one of the worst games of my life.  Sadly, though, it was still good enough to claim victory on my lane.

The birthday boy, perhaps unaware of the waning enthusiasm of the group, asked if anyone was up for a second game.  Everyone avoided eye contact; people started checking their watches; crickets chirped.

It was settled: We would change venues!  Sayonara, Bowlarama!

I pulled off my bowling shoes, and reported to the counter to collect my real shoes.  Bowlarama, it seemed, would have one more surprise waiting for me.

“Sorry, bro,” the guy told me, “they’ve already been claimed.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, very much unamused.

“Someone already got them,” he repeated.  “They’re not here.”

This was just dandy.  Gutter ball number seven!

Unwilling to go home shoeless, and in no mood to explain proper shoe safeguarding to the clueless clerk, I set out, scrutinizing everybody’s feet as I walked.

After a few minutes, I spotted my wandering footwear on a young Ethiopian man who was bowling the far lane.

“I think you’ve got my shoes,” I told him.

“Oh, really?” he replied.  “I got them at the counter.”

Apparently when the clerk took my shoes and exchanged them for bowling shoes, he put my shoes in a cubby hole.  Then someone came by later, turned in his shoes, and received my street shoes as bowling shoes.  Amateur hour!  My shoes didn’t even look like bowling shoes.   They were Converse low tops.

The man with my shoes, who was pretty much innocent in the scandal, was quick to give them up.  I hit the shoes with a generous spritz of antibacterial spray at the counter and made a beeline for the door.

I’ve said it on several occasions, but on this night it was especially apt:  Thank goodness for the after-party!