Welcome Back and Tears in Candlelight

Flying out over Ireland all of the cliches about her are true. She is indeed beautiful and below the patchwork quilt of greens and now in winter browns resemble more of a chocolate cake than an island of people.

Although I will spend two more days in the UK before I am to leave, I blink and find myself on a runway at Heathrow looking out of a window at a queue of hulking planes waiting to take off. Theses extraordinary machines defying gravitng every 30 seconds. As the front wheel of the beast lifts off the ground it never feels like we are travelling fast enough for the back of her to lift off. I wonder if this will be a flight in which the rear of the plane will surrender to gravity and kill us all. Flying has never been my strong suit.

Returning to Afghanistan for the first time I am both happy and sad. Sad at leaving family and close friends behind but happy that before me lies this extraordinary country of which I have still seen nothing. Having answered the same question over Christmas and New Year about what Afghanistan is like, to the point where I have my answers off by heart. I have given this as my spiel, Kabul or living in Kabul is not living in a war zone or anything nearly as glamourous or as exciting as that might sound. It is indeed a heavily militarised zone but the frontline is a world away from where we are and perhaps it not necessarily even in this country.

At the airport and by chance I run into a work colleague, a driver in fact who was there collecting his sister. I am surprised to receive the warmest of welcomes from him. Afghans kiss each other on each cheek when they meet and this is the first time I have received this welcome. Bizarrely for a country so reserved with the opposite sex; at least in public anyway the displays of affection men reserve for each other are extraordinary. Holding hands on the streets is normal and at the office I have seen young men draped over each other and even stroking each others necks.

On the way back to the guesthouse from the airport the city before me continues to mesmerise, the mountains at the end of every road cut into the skyline which is turning purple as the sun drops out of view for another day. The country does not look nearly as ragged as I remembered or indeed threatening. On the way to work the following morning I tell an Afghan friend half joking that I think I will walk to work tomorrow. His face strains slightly at the idea and he says but “organise a guard to come with you” thereby defeating the point of the idea. Outside the ordinary people going about the business of building roads or going to school makes me wonder what we spend so much time securing ourselves from?

Has Afghanistan made prisoners of us or have we made prisoners of ourselves? It occurs to me though that perhaps this is the last thought that people who get kidnapped think.

For me though there are two Afghanistans, the one I have been welcomed back to with kisses and there is the other.

Before Christmas:

Tears glistening in candlelight roll slowly over the lines which cut through her cheeks, she rests her fingers over her forehead to cover her face from me “I must bear, must bear”, this is not the first time I have heard these words from her. For it is the end of a long week of abuse, being called a bitch and a whore and being slapped in the face by a police officer outside of a Ministry on account of her ethnicity. There will be no journalists on doorsteps here, no mention on news programmes, no deafening outcry. No, just the sound of another day for another person bearing here, actually just a footnote in a life spent bearing.

What the words “Ilsam has no borders” have meant for her which I mention only because sin comes up so often!

She uses words to describe herself which only victims of terrible abuse use and even then she does not make statements but asks questions of herself. In an effort to console her I compare Afghanistan’s ‘Church and State’ to what my own country was like once upon a time. A Cardinal from the Vatican leaving the office of the Minister of Foreign affairs explaining why the Vatican did not co-operate with enquiries into industrial abuse comes to the fore. How it must gall them to be on their knees, to observe from such a perspective must make them empty reach as they choke on their own hypocrisy. It could be worse for them they could have been born on their knees like so many.

As Kabuls streets turn into a chocolate coloured slush from the early snow fall the children I have been watching from a car window all day long come to mind as they are practically barefoot. Some of them sell ‘Espand’ for 10 afs, (20 cents USD) a pungent smokey substance produced by burning Espand Seeds on Charcoal in tin cans hanging from string. Although I have seen these children who’s faces are black from the smoke selling this many times I have not yet seen it being bought. The substance is typically waved over the heads of children as a blessing to protect them from any harm which might come to them as a result of bad thoughts directed towards them.

But they are not children on these streets, they look children but their behaviour is that of animals who’s daily thoughts are only about survival. In a city of such poverty and like all cities with poverty, of which there are no exceptions there are of course the gross monuments pointing skyward. My friend tells me that “in Islam we bear unlike in the West where people are inclined to do” implying make things happen and not follow the path chosen for them.

Well my friend is on her knees now like so many before her. Comparing the sins which have been committed against her with the tiny infractions she is so turbulent about causes me to spit. I pass her some tissues as it is the only practical thing I can do for her and regret how upset she has become from recounting the week of abuse.

Since being back I have spoken with Western friends about the experience of returning. It is as if though we have not returned to a country at all but rather to another universe altogether. The contradictions abound as the rich tapestry of this experience continues to present colour after colour.

I know I can look forward to many more days in which the violence of one persons experience and that of many others like her will be in stark contrast to the words…

“Welcome back to Afghanistan”.